


We'll Fly This Place

by delires



Category: Glee
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-07
Updated: 2012-08-19
Packaged: 2017-11-09 09:34:40
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 22,720
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/453995
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/delires/pseuds/delires
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>London AU. In a world where Dalton Academy doesn't exist, Kurt and Blaine graduate high school without ever meeting. Instead, they find one another on the streets of London, where love is hard to come by. (Otherwise known as EastEndHipster!Blaine/WestEndLuvvie!Kurt)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

The Northern line gets utterly rammed at rush hour, with people packed into carriages cheek to jowl. General etiquette is every man for himself, but Blaine hasn’t quite internalised that yet. So, when he sees a boy fighting against the crowds headed in the opposite direction along the platform at Kings Cross, he shoves an arm between the doors to keep them from closing.

Blocking the doors holds up the entire train. It gets Blaine capital ‘L’ looks from the other passengers, who are all ear-budded and shielded by copies of The Evening Standard. But then the boy is pressed close with the movement of the train, his knuckles brushing Blaine’s on the overhead handrail, and Blaine stops caring about the looks because this boy has the most incredible eyes that he has ever seen.

“Thank you,” the boy says. His voice is high and breathless from rushing. “It’s like the stampede that killed Mufasa out there.”

The humour and the Disney and the American accent surprise Blaine, all three at once. He laughs.

“You get used to it.”

“Oh, I am,” the boy says, and then looks at Blaine with a sudden sharpening of interest. “Well, aren’t you a long way from home.”

“Not really,” Blaine says, “Home is one stop down the line.”

The train jolts. Blaine sees the flex of tendons in the boy’s wrist as he grips the rail more tightly.

Leaning in a little, the boy says, “I hate to break it to you, Dorothy, but you’re not in Kansas anymore.”

Blaine smiles. “It’s Ohio, actually, but you were close.”

The boy’s eyes widen. “Shut up. I’m from Ohio too.”

“You are not.”

“If I were going to lie, I would pick somewhere far more glamorous. Trust me, I’m from Ohio.”

The train has stopped. Someone knocks Blaine from behind, trying to get past. He is excited now, oblivious to the rest of the carriage. It is impossible not to miss Ohio sometimes, no matter how dreary and backwards it seems compared to a city like London. And now here comes this boy, a little piece of home.

Blaine flattens himself against the wall of the carriage to let people pass and then touches the boy’s arm as the train starts to move again.

“Where in Ohio?”

The boy glances at Blaine’s hand, as though he’s not used to being touched. “Lima. Like the bean.”

“Are you kidding me?” Blaine says, probably too loudly, but he can’t help it. “That’s right near me. It’s where Breadstix is.”

The boy laughs. Blaine finally realises that the pitch of his voice actually has nothing to do with exertion.

“You went to Breadstix,” the boy says.

“Of course I went to Breadstix. What else is there to do in Ohio?”

“Well, one can always indulge in drinking oneself to a slow death.”

They grin at each other. The windows turn from black to light as the train pulls into another station.

Blaine glances through the doors as they slide apart and is startled to see the word ‘Moorgate’ printed on the wall, as though two stops have just evaporated into thin air.

“I’ve missed Angel,” he says, dumbfounded.

“Excuse me?”

“My stop. I live in Angel. I was going home, but now I’ve missed it.”

The doors close and the train starts again without either of them getting off.

“Oh,” the boy says. His skin is very pale. His eyelashes are long and fair. He takes his hand off the handrail and holds it out. “I’m Kurt,” he says.

*

Kurt is riding to Bank, but says it’s not important, so they stay on until London Bridge. They buy takeout coffees at the station and then walk with them along Southbank, trading tragicomic stories about growing up Buckeye and pinning all of your hopes on show choir, hopes that came good for Kurt at least.

Blaine nearly trips over his own feet in delight when he hears that Kurt is a legitimate West End performer. He is playing the role of Puck in a musical adaptation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, re-imagined in the world of a 1960s music festival. It was a NYADA college online production that went viral, got picked up by a London investor and then dragged across the Atlantic. The papers have been calling it ‘The RSC meets Hair.’ Blaine has read the reviews.

“It’s basically been nonstop insanity. I still feel like somebody slipped me a pill,” Kurt says, his voice echoing in the underpass, along with the click of his boots. “One minute it’s this dorky thing that my stoner roommate wrote almost entirely whilst high as kite, and the next minute we’re here in London and everything I thought I wanted is happening in real time. Technicolor. Surround sound.”

Kurt shakes his head, like he can’t believe the words even as he is saying them.

They pause at the end of the tunnel so that Blaine can drop change into the open case of a busking guitarist, because street musicians have to look after their own. Kurt holds his coffee cup for him while he digs out his wallet.

“I sort of want it all to stop sometimes,” Kurt says, “Though I get scared it might never start again and then what?”

“Are you asking me, or is that rhetorical?” Blaine says, taking his coffee back.

Kurt blinks at him. “I’m sorry. I don’t usually unload on complete strangers like they’re my therapist,” he says.

They start to walk again, following the river. The sky is patchy with clouds. Sunlight keeps emerging and then receding. Blaine sips his coffee.

“I don’t have a therapist,” Kurt says abruptly, “Just to clear that up.”

There is an awkwardness about him, a trace of something left over from another life, maybe. It is almost hidden. You wouldn’t notice it at a glance, but it is quite endearing now that Blaine sees it. He looks at Kurt and smiles, the sun turning it into a squint.

“There’s nothing wrong with therapists.”

“Of course not, but the factual truth is that I don’t have one. I can’t vouch for my future, but as of now, I am a therapy virgin.”

Without thinking, Blaine says, “I’m not. I saw one for a little while when I was in school. Doctor Slater. She had huge, huge hair and little tiny hands. I still don’t think I needed to. I was fine. But my parents are both doctors so they have faith in the medical establishment.”

Kurt looks at him. “Do therapists count as part of the establishment?”

“Sure, if they’re expensive enough.”

The bank is getting more crowded. They have walked almost as far as the Tate. It’s tourist central. They walk in silence for a moment, stepping apart to let a runner pass between them. When they drift close again, Kurt says, “Do you mind if I ask?”

“What my therapy was for?”

“You don’t have to tell me.”

Blaine hasn’t talked to anyone in London about this. It feels like ancient history now, something that happened to a different person. People here know him as who he is rather than who he was and Blaine is happy with that. He doesn’t know why a stranger from the subway should be any different.

“There was just this incident at school,” he says, coming to a stop by the river. Kurt rests beside him, dangling his wrists over the railings. They look out over the Thames. Blaine takes a deep breath, surprised by how hard it is to say even after such a long time. “I got beaten up by some guys in my class for trying to take the wrong kind of person to a school dance.”

There are white tourist boats passing along the river, studded with orange life preservers and twitching with camera flashes. It is cold so close to the water. The wind gets right under Blaine’s collar.

After standing quietly for a moment, Kurt says, “A boy kind of person?”

Blaine turns and finds Kurt looking at him.

“Yeah,” he says.

It feels weird now. They seem to have skipped a chunk of relationship and gotten too intimate without going through all the steps in between, like finding yourself at one station when you intended to get off three stops before.

A horn from one of the boats makes both of them startle. Blaine only just avoids dropping his empty coffee cup into the river. When he looks back, Kurt is staring at his watch.

“I have to go,” Kurt says, and Blaine’s stomach sinks. This is what happens when you drop homophobic bullying into casual conversation with somebody you just met.

As though Blaine has said this out loud, Kurt looks up quickly. “Oh, it’s not because of what you just told me.”

“Of course not.”

“I’ll be late for work if I stay.”

“You don’t need to make excuses.”

“No,” Kurt says, so strongly that it make Blaine jump again. He puts out his hand and stops just shy of touching Blaine’s shoulder. “Look, can I give you my number?”

That makes Blaine hesitate. This is always a little awkward. There’s not really an easy way to say: I don’t technically have a real boyfriend, but I am kind of off the market anyway because I’ve got this thing going with my housemate and it’s not like it’s serious, but we do pretty much live in the same room, so dating other people isn’t exactly that...

Kurt’s cheeks are a little pink. He is flustered now, flapping one hand in quick dismissal, probably because he can read the look on Blaine’s face. “I mean, I’m actually sort of seeing someone myself right now,” he says. “This isn’t that. I just. It was just really nice to meet you, and I feel like we could be friends.” He winces. Adorably. “I’m bad at this.”

Blaine puts his hand on Kurt’s shoulder, the contact the other man hadn’t been able to initiate. “I’d like to be friends,” he says, which makes Kurt look pleased.

“Good. I’d like to be friends too.”

Switching lines on the underground is a pain, so Blaine heads back to London Bridge while Kurt goes the opposite direction, towards Waterloo. As he is walking away, Blaine turns to look back over his shoulder, only to catch Kurt doing the same. Blaine smiles, lifts one hand in goodbye and then keeps on walking.

He doesn’t look back again.

In a city this size, you meet people all the time. Potential friends come and go, slipping through your grasp as easy as water. Keeping up with them all is just too hard. Stuff gets in the way.

Blaine already suspects that neither of them will end up calling. It is a shame, but that’s how it goes.

*

To afford living somewhere like Angel means cramming as many people into a house as possible. The place is never empty. Blaine kicks the bottom of the front door to get it to open as he turns the key. The paint is already scuffed there, marks made by similar kicks from his housemates’ boots and sneakers.

They are on him the moment he is inside.

Karl pulls him into a one-armed hug, his elbow heavy at the back of Blaine’s neck. “We’ve been boozing for an hour, dude. You need to play catch up,” he says.

“Are you going out?” Blaine reaches after his bag as Natty peels it off of him and tosses it onto the sofa. It is a Thursday night. Blaine has lectures first thing in the morning.

“We,” Natty says. Her eyes are dark with thick liner. “We are going out. Charlie’s gig. I told you last night.”

Blaine ducks Karl’s arm, grabs his bag back and makes it to his room, the others following. Austin is already in there, a coat hanger held between his teeth as he buckles a belt around his hips. He tilts his chin when he sees Blaine, turns his cheek to be kissed.

Louis bangs open the door and points his finger in a way that would make Blaine’s brother proud. “We won’t get in the doors if we’re late. It’s Dalston. We’ll have to bus it.”

The desk pushed up against the wall is still littered with the debris of Blaine’s latest half-finished essay: highlighted photocopies, a Norton anthology, a copy of the works of Spenser stuffed with post-it notes. It is due in less than a week.

Louis must see him eyeing the desk. “Blaine, fuck you,” he says, “You are not missing this. There might be producers there. I’m getting you a drink immediately.”

Natty pinches Blaine’s waist. “Wear something tight,” she says. “Oh, wait. That’s all of your clothes.”

“Stop,” Blaine tells her.

“No bow-ties,” she adds.

When they are alone in their room, Blaine turns to Austin, who at least manages to pull a face that looks almost sympathetic.

“Don’t you see what I’ll be stuck with if you don’t come?” he says, stepping close and running his thumb under the hem of Blaine’s shirt. “You look hot in this. Just wear that tonight. Oh, also, I have something for you.”

Austin pulls a crumpled flyer out of his back pocket and hands it over. It is an advertisement for Matthew Bourne’s Car Man, Blaine’s favourite.

“Where did this come from?” Blaine says, with a grin.

“It’s back at Sadler’s Wells. Do you want to go with me next week?”

“Sure.”

The door swings open again. Louis pushes a glass into Blaine’s hand. It smells like Bacardi. “Drink that in the shower. We’re leaving in twenty. Make him ready, Aus. I’m not having flapping.”

Louis points at them one last time, to make sure that they obey.

Once he’s gone again, Austin tickles his fingers up Blaine’s arm, like the steps of spider legs. “Want me to tie your shoes for you too?”

“Fuck off.” Blaine laughs, shoving him hard.

*

The bar in Dalston is kind of a dive, which is standard for these indie gigs. There are lots of people whose pupils look too big for their eyes, lots of vintage outfits and hats worn inside. The hand stamps they get on the door are in the shape of line art from Clockwork Orange. The place is the absolute definition of ‘hipster’.

Charlie’s band is good. Louis introduces Blaine to a man he says is a record producer, but who could honestly be anyone.

They drink and they dance and Natty goes home with her ex-boyfriend. They won’t hear the end of that for about three weeks, but if anyone had tried to stop her then things would only have been worse. They lose Louis too, eventually. He goes backstage and never comes back.

Blaine, Karl and Austin bail on the whole night as the barman is ringing last orders. Someone makes the decision to try for the last train.

They are rushing through the station when a poster on the wall catches Blaine’s eye. It is green and bright, with a familiar pair of eyes peering from one corner of the image. The tagline printed across the bottom in psychedelic lettering: ‘The course of true love never did run smooth.’

Blaine stops to touch. “I know him,” he says.

The others double back to collect him. Karl looks at the poster and then at Blaine. “Mate, did you drink something spiked? How are you that wasted?”

“I am not wasted,” Blaine says.

Austin comes up from behind and wraps his arms around him, then steps forwards until Blaine starts moving. “Come on, Anderson,” he says, “Let’s take it to the trains, baby.”

*

In bed that night, with Austin a snoring weight at his side, Blaine dreams that a boy dressed like a hippie is pressing him back against a wall. The boy wears yellow sunglasses shaped like stars. They bump against Blaine’s jaw as the boy ducks his head to suck hard at Blaine’s throat.

The boy’s chest is bare beneath his fringed vest, the skin smooth to the touch. Blaine runs his hands across it and down to the boy’s trim waist.

There are hands moving beneath Blaine’s shirt too, palms soft against his back. They dip down over the curve of Blaine’s ass and then a slick finger presses into his body. The touch is perfect. Blaine pushes into it, clasping the boy closer. His shoulder knocks the glasses askew, and they clatter to the floor. The stars crack beneath the boy’s foot.

Then the boy is behind Blaine, without seeming to move. He works a second finger in beside the first. Hard and panting, Blaine tips his head back against the boy’s shoulder. His ear is right by the boy’s lips. He can hear the smile in the boy’s voice as he says, “We’ve got an audience.”

Only then does Blaine realise that they are on a stage, with a full house spread around them in a curve. There are a thousand eyes. The spotlights are dazzling.

“Lord what fools these mortals be,” the boy calls out across the stage, to a burst of applause.

Blaine knows that he should be mortified, but he is not, not least when the slender fingers of the boy’s other hand slide down the front of Blaine’s jeans and squeeze around his erection.

He turns his head, angling his mouth so that the boy can kiss him. Their tongues slide and their teeth click. When their mouths separate, Blaine opens his eyes and recognises the face for the first time. Those fingers and those eyes belong to Kurt, the boy from the underground.

That jolt of recognition is what finally makes Blaine come. He bucks on the fingers still inside of him and squeezes his eyes closed against the spotlights, all to a deafening surge in applause.

*

Blaine sits up in bed, sticky and quivering as a teenager coming round from his first wet dream.

Austin rolls over next to him. “What’s the matter?” he says, voice scratchy.

Blaine throws the covers aside and swings his legs to the floor. “Nothing. I need the restroom.”

In the bathroom, he stares at himself in the mirror above the sink. His cheeks are pink and his bottom lip is dark from where he has clearly been biting it in his sleep. The bathroom smells musty from the mildew that will never scrub off. Blaine’s ears are still ringing from the speakers in the bar.

Maybe somebody did put something in his drink, because everything around him looks different, as though each item in the house has been taken away and then put back in a slightly new place. He sits down on the edge of the tub and thinks about the dream. His cheeks heat up with the memory.

Blaine knows then that he is going to call, even if Kurt doesn’t.

This isn’t another thing to let slip between his fingers.


	2. Chapter 2

The scrambled eggs in the pan have already gotten too solid. That’s what happens if you take your eyes off them for a second, and Blaine has been staring at his phone for a whole minute now.

He has Kurt’s number pulled up on the screen, his thumb hovering over the ‘call’ button. He's trying to plan out just the right thing to say, which is so completely dumb, because this isn’t like that. They are just going to be friends and Blaine is really good at friends.

This isn't scary. Blaine could face down bullies at his old school. He could get on a plane and fly to Europe on his own for a whole fresh start at college. He can stand on stage and sing like his life depends on it. So, he can certainly make a quick phone call to a cute boy who wants to be friends with him.

Before he can over-think himself out of doing it, Blaine hits call and lifts the phone to his ear.

He bounces lightly on the balls of his feet as the phone rings and rings and eventually connects to Kurt’s answer phone, which is fine. Blaine is as awesome at answer phones as he is at friends.

He plasters on a grin so that he will sound genuine, turns around and then falters.

Austin is standing right there by the stove, lifting the smoking pan of eggs from the heat.

“These are literally about to burn, Blainey-baby. What are you doing?” Austin shuts off the gas. Then, he takes the phone right out of Blaine’s hand and hits the cancel button before Blaine can do anything more than stare like an idiot.

“Guess what?” Austin says with a grin. “You’re going to love me for it.”

“What?”

“Guess.”

Blaine holds out his hand, trying not to scowl. “I can’t. Give me my phone.”

“My friend Nick is an usher at Sadler’s Wells. Free tickets, Car Man, tomorrow night. Just you and me.” Austin hands the phone back. “You game for it?”

Blaine pockets his phone, hears a few bars of Bizet ringing in his head and decides that Austin is instantly forgiven.

“That sounds lovely,” he says, then, peering into the smoking pan, “I can’t eat these.”

He turns the pan upside down over the trash, but the eggs are stuck to the metal. Austin hops onto the kitchen counter and watches as Blaine tries to scrape them out.

“By the way, Louis set up a meeting with that guy from the label last night,” Austin says, flicking the switch of the kettle on and then off again. “He wants to hear us.”

Blaine bangs the pan against the side of the trashcan in an attempt to dislodge the last of the egg. He tries to bring the man’s face to mind, but can only remember his suit, which had been slick and gunmetal grey - completely out of place in an East End bar - and the unpleasant strength that he put behind his handshake, like his grip was trying to prove a point.

“Oh, for real?” Blaine says, “So, we’ll go along to meet him and he won’t turn out to be another drug dealer with a bowie knife this time?”

Austin quits screwing with the kettle. “Okay, Louis has apologised for that in every way he knows how.”

Blaine puts the pan into the sink. “You weren’t there. Only Natty and Karl and me will ever understand how insanely terrifying that evening was.”

“It’s not as if any of you were like, actually scarred.”

“Psychologically, we were.”

The drug baron with the bowie knife is never a subject to joke about. Blaine still has the occasional night terror about that. However, when he opens the bread bin and finds an open packet of hot cross buns wedged in there, everything is happy once again.

“Natty bought those ages ago,” Austin says, “They’re probably stale.”

Blaine doesn’t care. The novelty of these things still hasn’t quite worn off. He slices one open in delight and puts it into the toaster.

“Are you having one? I’ll do it for you. I promise I won’t burn it,” he says. Austin slides off the counter, looking serious. Blaine already has the second bun in his hand. “What? You don’t want it?”

He is surprised when Austin leans in and kisses him on the mouth. They aren’t usually that touchy outside of the bedroom. It is odd and a little awkward, especially when Austin touches Blaine’s lips with his fingertips afterwards.

“You’re too sweet,” he says. “Things are going to eat you alive.”

“What things?”

“Like, when we’re famous. Paparazzi and whatever.”

Blaine steps back, using the excuse of grabbing butter from the fridge.

“We’re kind of far from that, don’t you think? Just because Louis thinks that he made another meeting. Probably all we’ll get offered is a pretty good deal on some crack. That’s if we’re lucky.”

“Apparently, the guy asked to hear a cover,” Austin says. “Karl wants to do Aloe Black.”

“Cool.”

“But Louis said no. So, I think we should go with The Vaccines. ‘Wetsuit.’ You can learn it in time.”

“Okay.”

“Safe,” Austin says, though ironically. “I have to run. I have a seminar.” He squeezes Blaine’s hip in goodbye and then jerks his chin towards the toaster. “Don’t take your eyes off the prize, Anderson.”

The burnt hot cross bun pops up just as Blaine turns to check on it.

*

Cereal is a much safer bet. With no heat, there is nothing to burn.

Blaine carries his bowl into the living room, where Natty is lying on the sofa and talking on her cell phone. BBC Breakfast is on TV in the background. The sound is on mute, but Blaine sits down to watch anyway and then almost drops his cereal when he registers what he’s seeing.

The rolling news bar at the bottom of the screen covers the ankles of the group gathered on the studio sofas. ‘Shakespeare musical takes West End by storm,’ scrolls slowly across it.

Kurt is pale and so perfect with his big blue eyes and elegant legs crossed at the knee. There is no sign of the awkwardness Blaine saw in the flesh. Under the cameras and studio lights he looks completely poised. His outfit is immaculate.

Blaine is on his feet in a second, scrabbling for the remote control and flicking on the sound in time to catch the end of the presenter’s question.

“...do you think makes it so accessible?”

There is a pause. The camera pans to the guests, who include a woman with a sweep of ginger curls and a man with a dark goatee.

“Well, it’s a love story,” Kurt says, drawing the camera’s entire focus, “And a very relatable one. It’s about a group of people who all end up in the arms of the wrong person when...when the love of their life is right there, but out of reach. It’s about the struggle to get to the place you belong in.”

“Wow, and here I thought it was about drugs and hippies,” the man with the goatee says.

Kurt smiles at him. It is an indulgent look, as though they are very used to each other. “That too,” he says.

The presenter addresses Kurt alone. “And of course, with your role as Puck...”

“Yes.”

“You’re sort of the puppeteer of the whole thing.”

“Right. Puck plays with them all. I get to mess things up and then fix them again. It’s a fun role.”

“It also means that you sing some of my favourite songs in the show.”

“Oh, thank you.”

The presenter grins at the camera. “Let’s have a look at you guys in action.”

They show footage from the production. Blaine can feel himself going slack-jawed as he listens to Kurt hit note after incredible note. His voice seems to stretch up and down easy as elastic. But this isn’t easy, working between registers while holding onto a tone so clear and so pure that it makes the breath in Blaine’s chest catch. It is beautiful and completely unusual, not at all something you hear every day.

Blaine points at the TV. He feels like he’s having some kind of religious experience. “Oh, man,” he says, “Are you hearing this guy’s range?”

Natty stares at him. She has one hand covering the speaking end of her phone.

“Yes,” she says, “I hear the countertenor, Blaine. I’ve heard one before. I also hear you, when I’m trying to have a conversation with Christie.”

Blaine ignores her and turns the sound up louder.

He wonders whether Kurt has his phone on him right now in the studio, in the pocket of those beautifully fitted pants. Did he feel it vibrate against his thigh with Blaine’s missed call? It went to answer phone, of course it did. Kurt couldn’t pick up or even cancel it, because he was busy waiting to be interviewed live on the BBC.

Abruptly, Blaine wishes he hadn’t tried to call at all. He feels like an insignificant moron.

“Natty?” he says.

She sighs dramatically and covers the phone again. “What?”

Blaine gestures to Kurt’s face onscreen. “Do you think someone like that would want to know me?”

“Um. Sure, Hugh Grant. What time are you opening your book shop today?”

“Okay.”

“No, seriously. I need to purchase a copy of that ‘Power of Introverts’ book so that I can give it to my really loud and annoying housemate, for his info.”

“Yes, I get it. Thank you for that,” Blaine says.

He picks up the remote control and mutes the sound over the next thing the presenter says. Natty pats his arm in thanks.

*

On the bus ride to college, Blaine sits next to a girl wearing Doc Martins and a cute burgundy blazer. He wants to ask her where she bought that, but she has ear buds tucked into her ears and her music is turned up loud enough for Blaine to be able to make out the melody. It takes him a moment to notice that the song is 'Wetsuit', by The Vaccines.

He feels a stab of irritation. It’s not that he doesn’t like the song; he does. But Austin suggesting that Blaine can learn it in time is ridiculous, because all Blaine would need to do to accomplish this is to visit a couple of Shoreditch indie bars tonight and he would have heard it a dozen times over. What they need is something less usual.

Blaine pulls out his phone and delves into iTunes.

*

Concentrating in lectures is particularly hard this morning. Blaine keeps thinking about the tilt of Kurt’s jaw as he turned to smile at the man with the goatee, and the song from Midsummer is stuck in Blaine’s head, from the short clip that he heard. He keeps catching himself tapping out the rhythm with his pen against his pad, when he is supposed to be taking notes.

Eventually, the guy sitting in front of him turns around and gives him such a death glare that Blaine has to whisper an apology and put his pen down entirely, because there is just no fighting the impulse.

He has already lost the thread of the speaker’s argument, so Blaine decides to write this one off and to check in on band business instead. That stuff usually gets conducted via Facebook during the day while they are all running their own lives in different parts of the city.

Blaine holds his phone out of sight under the bench and skims over the latest thread.

 **Karl Werner:**  
Fuck the fucking Vaccines, man. Maudlin.

 **Natalie Collins:**  
Blaine wants Young the Giant. Did you click the link he sent? I’m sold.

 **Karl Werner:**  
MAUDLIN.

 **Austin Starr:**  
Learn a new word, tossface

 **Louis De Mattia:**  
‘Cough Syrup’ is not a title. It doesn’t even make sense. We’ll look like we don’t know what titles mean.

Blaine doesn’t usually join in the standard social media squabbles about band stuff. He lets the guys fight it out amongst themselves. Afterwards, he takes whatever they give him and makes it shine for them. Sometimes he will try to seed his own ideas, but he rarely has the conviction to stand up for them. It is easier to keep peace and let the others take the big decisions.

He isn’t sure what makes this time different.

 **Blaine Anderson:**  
It’s something that every producer in London won’t already have heard a million times in a million identical demos. I really believe in it. It’s a good bet.

There is radio silence for a minute or two after Blaine posts. Then, a message from Louis pops up on the thread.

 **Louis De Mattia:**  
Aus, is your boy going to throw his toys out of the pram if we don’t do the giant song?

 **Austin Starr:**  
He better not.

 **Blaine Anderson:**  
I will, yes.

 **Louis De Mattia:**  
Fine then. Fuck the fucking Vaccines.

 **Karl Werner:**  
THANK YOU

Blaine gets a little thrill of triumph. His thoughts return to Kurt. If one queer kid from a dead end town in the Midwest can make his mark on a city like this, then maybe Blaine can do it too.

 **Blaine Anderson:**  
Hey, I just noticed that all of our song suggestions are medicine-themed! :D

 **Louis De Mattia:**  
What the actual fuck

 **Karl Werner:**  
Fired from the band Anderson

 **Blaine Anderson:**  
You can’t fire me. You guys would be nothing.

 **Natalie Collins:**  
OH HO.

 **Karl Werner:**  
When did you grow balls midget?

 **Blaine Anderson:**  
Right now.

 **Natalie Collins:**  
I like you with balls. They look good on you. <3

 **Blaine Anderson:**  
Thanks! :)

 **Louis De Mattia:**  
I’m out

 **Karl Werner:**  
Same

 **Austin Starr:**  
Third.

 **Austin Starr:**  
I wanted The Vaccines.

 **Karl Werner:**  
no one cares

*

Kurt never returns the call, and Blaine isn’t surprised. It makes perfect sense. Life will go on.

That evening they have rehearsal and then Natty wants Blaine to go with her to some party on West End Lane that’s being held by her second-to-last-ex-boyfriend. Blaine is still in a good mood after being allowed to sing his song, so he goes with her for moral support.

They get back late and then stand in the kitchen talking and eating toast until Karl comes out of his room and tells them to shut the fuck up because he can’t have a proper wank with their two voices in his head. Natty spits the last bite of her toast out down the sink in disgust. Blaine laughs until he chokes. Karl shouts that he hates them both.

Back in his own room, Blaine stares at the papers on his desk and briefly entertains thoughts of trying to bang out another couple hundred words, but then Austin comes home drunk and pulls Blaine straight into bed, so the night ends in banging of a different kind.

As Blaine is falling asleep, his phone buzzes. He finds himself thinking of Kurt as he reaches for it, but the message is only from Natty, who is texting in distress because she thinks she can hear Karl wanking through the wall which separates their bedrooms.

Austin's arm is clammy around Blaine's waist. He drops his phone on the floor and pushes his face into the pillows, trying not to think about Karl jerking off.

*

The next morning, Blaine wakes up bleary with the knowledge that he had better spend the entire day studying nonstop. He shoves Austin away from him and gets up grumpy.

It is a bad start to a bad day.

He has pretty much forgotten about Car Man until Austin comes to find him at his desk fifteen minutes before they have to leave and tells him off for not being ready.

They nearly miss the doors, but make it just in time, apologising their way along the row of seats and sitting down right as the theatre goes dark.

Once Blaine is in a darkened theatre, he is lost to the world. He forgets everything, essays and bands and boys on the underground. All he knows is the flow of the dancers and the emotion captured in the adapted Bizet score. Productions like this one get his heart racing.

He can’t keep it together as they head out to the bar during the interval. Austin has to just listen because Blaine is talking too fast for it to be a two-sided conversation. Only when Blaine smacks an innocent bystander with a particularly enthusiastic hand gesture does Austin grab him by the wrist.

“Calm down,” he says, and then, glancing over Blaine’s shoulder, “I’m sorry about that.”

He is addressing the person who just took the brunt of Blaine’s excitement, of course. Blaine turns around quickly. He is ready to fall over himself apologising, but utterly fails.

Kurt is standing right in front of him, holding a glass of wine well clear of Blaine’s flailing hands.


	3. Chapter 3

At first, Blaine can’t say anything at all. When he does find his voice, he stumbles over his hello.

Kurt looks fantastic. He’s wearing tight dark pants, a softly coiled scarf and a beautiful tan shirt. The shirt is Burberry: this season. Blaine knows because he has been coveting the exact one online for at least three weeks, hovering his mouse over the ‘Add to bag’ button whilst trying to convince himself that it is a legitimate use of his student loan.

What’s not so fantastic is that Kurt is not alone. He has another guy with him, who is tall and broad-shouldered and handsome in the most typical of ways.

‘I’m actually sort of seeing someone right now’, Blaine remembers Kurt saying, ‘This isn’t that'.

The man at Kurt’s side looks wholesome and athletic and so very American that Blaine can just picture it: Kurt’s face twisted in satisfaction, his fingertips digging into those wide shoulders, as this man drives into him again and again and...

Kurt says, “This strapping fellow is my incredibly tall brother, Finn.”

Without any hesitation Kurt lays a hand on his brother’s arm, and Blaine is immediately mortified that he just created an accidental incest fantasy.

“Hey,” says Finn, holding out his hand. “What’s up?”

Blaine should say something like, ‘Hi, Finn. It’s nice to meet you. How are you enjoying London?’

Instead, because he is quite distracted by the elegant way that Kurt’s fingers are gripping the stem of his wine glass, and he is trying not to imagine how those fingers might grip other things, Blaine says, “I have an incredibly tall brother too.”

Finn gives him a bewildered smile. “That’s nice, dude,” he says, and then looks at Kurt for help.

Kurt isn’t paying attention. He is looking at Blaine closely, though his expression changes when Blaine catches his eye.

“Well isn’t this a delightful coincidence?” Kurt says, with a smile worthy of BBC television.

“Us both having tall brothers?” says Blaine.

Kurt blinks. His eyelashes are as long as Blaine remembers.

“I meant us meeting here like this, but sure. Tall brothers too.”

“Being tall next to you isn’t exactly the hardest thing in the world, Anderson,” Austin says, nudging an elbow into Blaine’s ribs. It is lucky he speaks up when he does, because Blaine had genuinely forgotten he was here. Shocked back into his manners, Blaine waves a hand in introduction.

“Kurt, this is my housemate, Austin. And Austin, this is...” Blaine falters, not sure how to describe him. “...Kurt.”

Blaine watches them shake hands. He feels nervous, though he has no reason to be. Austin is the kind of guy who can carry a conversation with strangers, no sweat.

“Are you both visiting London?” Austin asks.

Finn seems to have already checked out of proceedings. His gaze has wandered away, towards the staircase leading up to the circles, and the red walls with their framed posters. Kurt answers for both of them.

“I’m actually living near Notting Hill Gate at the moment. Finn’s visiting with his fiancée. She’s here tonight, but she’s in line for the little girl’s room.”

Seeing a chance to contribute, Finn says, “Girls take forever to pee.”

“Please don’t talk about peeing.” Kurt says, touching Finn’s arm again and shaking his head.

“You brought it up first, dude.”

Before the conversation can veer even further from where Blaine would ideally like it to be, the bell signalling the end of intermission rings. There is a moment where they all hesitate, unsure how to wrap things up. Then Austin takes it upon himself to say, “Blaine and I were going to grab some dinner after this. Probably Moroccan. It’s a little late, but we were in a rush earlier and didn’t have time. You’re welcome to join us if you want.”

Blaine feels a jolt of panic at that idea. Clearly, he can’t explain that Kurt is not someone he actually knows, but is rather a near-stranger that he picked up on the tube, revealed embarrassing personal secrets to and then had an awkward exhibitionist sex dream about while asleep in Austin’s bed.

“Aus, I’m sure they’re busy,” Blaine says.

But it is too late. The damage has been done. Finn is already looking at Kurt hopefully.

“We didn’t eat yet,” Finn says, and Kurt’s fingers tighten against his arm, as though Finn needs to be physically restrained against the mere mention of food.

“Dinner would be lovely,” Kurt says, with a smile that might be forced or might be normal, but Blaine can’t tell because he doesn’t know him.

“That’s great,” Blaine says, his own smile most definitely forced.

Finn’s grin could not be wider. As they head back towards the theatre, he claps Blaine on the shoulder with enough force to make him stagger.

“Hot brother,” Austin says, once they are settled back in their seats.

Blaine makes a noise of vague agreement. He can’t even bring Finn’s face to mind at the moment. He is too busy staring at the stage, spread before the peering eyes of the audience, and having dream flashbacks which make him squirm where he sits.

*

As much as Blaine’s relationship with Austin isn’t really a relationship in the true sense, there is still something about it that works.

So what if the first three times they slept together Blaine had been scarcely sober enough to remember it happening? So what if they spent months not actually dating, but repeatedly encountering one another at parties and gigs and drama soc meetings which got out of hand? It was exciting.

With his tattoos and his wiry muscles and his hand-rolled cigarettes, Austin was part of a culture that Blaine had never encountered before. He wore skinny jeans so tight that they hurt to look at. He styled his hair for shape rather than control. Austin was in a band and that was exciting as well, especially after he made Blaine audition for them and it became Blaine’s band too.

When their first year of university was ending and they were due to get chucked out of halls to fend for themselves, and Austin had explained that his friend had a space to rent that would be a total steal if they split the cost between them, Blaine had said yes, because it just made sense.

The two of them are friends. Austin is talented and attractive and Blaine is lucky to have him. The sex is easy. It should be enough.

Yet, all through dinner Blaine finds himself looking at Kurt and listening to Kurt and wishing that everybody else at the table would shut up and disappear.

Finn’s fiancée, Rachel, has a phone full of photographs from a music festival in New York the past summer. She is eager to show them off to Blaine and Austin along with her colourful accounts of tents and campfires and sunscreen.

“I have a wonderful one of you,” she says, smiling teasingly up at Kurt as she flicks through the images. Kurt snaps his fingers at her. Repeatedly.

“Let me see.”

She holds the screen up, but will not let him take the phone from her hand when he tries.

“No! You’ll delete it,” she says, drawing the phone back towards her chest. “You always delete everything.”

“I won’t. Let me see,” Kurt says, with such authority that she hands it over. He takes one look at the screen and grimaces. Blaine can tell that the photo is about to disappear to the place of deleted things, but Rachel is too quick. She snatches the phone away before Kurt can do the deed.

“It’s adorable. You look adorable.”

“Rachel, it’s hideous. I’m wearing those awful glasses.”

“And Josh looks adorable, too.” She lifts the phone again, waving it at Kurt from a safe distance. “See? Look at how cute your boyfriend is.”

Finn makes a strange noise, his mouth still full of lamb. “Josh,” he says, with as much bitchy disdain as a straight guy can muster.

“No,” Kurt says, looking stern, but Finn does not seem put off. He washes the lamb down with the last of his wine.

“The boy’s a dick, dude. I don’t care who hears me.”

“Finn. I said not now.”

Rachel clears her throat. One of her hands is out of sight beneath the table. Blaine would put money on her fingers currently tightening against Finn’s thigh in a warning not to push the issue. As if on cue, Finn scowls at her, like he’s being jabbed by a particularly sharp nail.

“Blaine will think it’s adorable,” Rachel says loudly, reaching out to him across the table.

Kurt makes a grab for her, but the phone is already in Blaine’s hands, and he is too curious not to look. He taps the screen with his thumb to bring colour back to the display.

The image is warm and gold with late afternoon sunlight. There is a crowd of people in the background, all scuffed and dusty with festival grime. They are face-painted, dreadlocked, bare-chested, happy people, and Kurt is among them. He doesn’t look like he quite belongs, with his pale skin and perfectly-coiffed hair. He is wearing a grey t-shirt with the Chanel No.5 logo printed on the front, and has an old skull-patterned McQueen scarf knotted around his neck. Blaine guesses this must be about as rock and roll as Kurt gets. He is standing with another guy, but Blaine barely pays that any notice because perched on the bridge of Kurt’s nose are a pair of yellow sunglasses which have lenses shaped like stars.

Blaine has nothing in his mouth, but he somehow manages to choke anyway.

“Do you see?” Kurt says. His voice reaches new heights as Blaine is hacking up his lungs. “It’s such a bad photo that it made him choke on his own tongue.”

“No, no,” Blaine stammers, between coughs. “That’s not what─ You look hot, I just─”

The entire table is staring at him now. Blaine desperately wants to think of something he can say that will make things better rather than worse, but he’s got nothing apart from: _Those glasses just took me by surprise because you were wearing a pair exactly like them when I dreamt about you fingering me on stage in front of a completely full house. How spooky is that?_

Luckily, Austin is there to step in again. He claps Blaine on the back and smirks in that wry British way of his.

“Don’t think it’s personal, Kurt,” he says, “Breathing and eating at the same time is a bit tricky for Blaine. Isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Blaine says immediately. He’s glad of the excuse, though hates himself for being such a gigantic dork, even more so when Finn nods at him in sympathy.

“That can be really tough,” Finn says.

“Thanks,” says Blaine. He just catches the end of the look which Rachel and Kurt are exchanging.

Blaine passes the phone back before he can look too closely at the other man in the photograph, a man who is blonde and brutally hot and has his lean, tanned arms curled around Kurt’s body.

*

In the restaurant bathroom, Blaine glances into the mirror above the sink while he is washing his hands. His cheeks are pink and his eyes are a bit too bright from the wine. The sight of his reflection reminds him of the night after that dream, when he sat on the edge of the tub and trembled because the whole room had looked different.

He can almost feel it, that’s the uncanny thing. Blaine can so clearly imagine the press of Kurt’s lips against his throat and the stretch of fingers inside of him. It’s like it has really happened, like it will happen again. A far from ideal start to a platonic friendship.

When the bathroom door opens a second later, of course it is Kurt who steps through. Of course it is. Blaine turns to face him, repositioning his hands so that he can keep holding on to the sink.

“Are you okay?” Kurt says.

“Sure.”

“You seem uncomfortable tonight. I wondered if something was wrong.”

Kurt is watching him with a concerned expression on his face, but Blaine can only think of Kurt’s hands all over him, one of them sliding into his jeans as he pulls Blaine close and says, We’ve got an audience...

“I saw you on TV,” Blaine blurts out. “I watched you sing.”

Kurt looks genuinely surprised. “Oh.”

“You’re a celebrity,” Blaine says, which makes Kurt laugh.

“I am not. People just starting out on the West End are not famous, Blaine. If I were a celebrity, I wouldn’t have to travel around London on the tube, would I?”

“I thought you performed incredibly. I found it really...” Blaine struggles for words, “...moving.” He steps forwards. His hand has found its way to his chest.

Kurt is staring at him with fascination now, as though he has never seen anything quite like him before. No, Blaine thinks, that’s how I’m supposed to look at you.

“You make me feel starstruck,” he says.

It isn’t a line. Blaine says it because it is what he is thinking. He says it because it is the truth. And in that instant, with a kind of nauseating certainty, Blaine knows exactly what is going on here.

This is that after all.

Kurt must know too. He has gone very still, except for his chest, which Blaine can see rising and falling too quickly beneath the slim fit of his shirt.

Very carefully, as though he is scared of what each word might mean, Kurt says, “I’m sorry that I didn’t return your call. I wanted to, but Finn and Rachel have been here and they’re like toddlers in how much of your time they demand.”

“Don’t worry about it,” Blaine says, before Kurt has even finished talking.

It is a shock when the door swings open again and a man walks in. With barely a glance at either of them, he strides over to a urinal, plants himself in front of it and unzips.

Kurt averts his eyes to the ceiling.

“This is a creepy place to be having this conversation,” he says. Blaine is quick to agree.

*

They all say goodbye outside of the restaurant. Blaine feels quivery with adrenaline. He shakes Finn’s hand and kisses Rachel’s cheek, then doesn’t know what to do with Kurt, despite saving him for last. Blaine settles for squeezing his shoulder. It is sort of an awkward gesture, but then Kurt lifts his hand and touches Blaine’s wrist, his fingertips just brushing the bare skin at the edge of his sleeve.

“I’ll text you,” Kurt says, in a way that gives Blaine thrills. “We’ll have coffee.”

Blaine nods. “I’d love that.”

*

As he and Austin walk back to the house, Blaine doesn’t know how to explain why he can’t stop smiling. So he keeps up a stream of conversation about the ballet, enthusing over the set design and listing all of the reasons he finds Angelo so relatable.

Once they are inside, Austin cuts him off mid-sentence by kissing him long and slow in the doorway of their room.

“I had a really good time tonight,” Austin says.

His tone is weird and searching. It strikes Blaine as the kind of voice you might use at the end of a first date when you aren’t quite sure where you stand and don’t want to give away too much too fast.

Way too late, Blaine thinks back over the evening and realises with a jolt that he has not paid for a single thing all night. Austin leans back in again, his breath warm against Blaine’s lips, but Blaine puts up a hand to stop him.

“Did we just go on an actual date?” Blaine says. There is a growing uneasiness in his stomach. He turns his head so that Austin’s next kiss lands on his jaw, instead of his mouth. Austin chuckles against him.

“A date you invited your friends on, yeah.”

“You were the one who invited─”

“Blaine, listen,” Austin cuts him off, squeezing his hands around Blaine’s biceps. “I know we’ve been fucking about for a while now, but I really like you. I’ve been thinking that we could maybe stop fucking about and try to do this properly.” Austin’s hands slide from Blaine’s arms up to the sides of his neck. “What do you think?”

They are standing right there in the bedroom they both pay for; in the house they share with their band mates, at the epicentre of Blaine’s entire life in this city. He is caught so off-guard that there seems to be only one acceptable thing he can say.

“Okay.”

When Austin kisses him next, Blaine kisses him back.

And when Austin tries to pull the sweater off Blaine’s body, Blaine lifts his arms to help him out.


	4. Chapter 4

Blaine wakes all tangled up with Austin, in a room moist from sex and body heat and the permanent damp which the landlord refuses to get fixed. Getting untangled seems too difficult, so he lies awake, staring at the patch of ceiling where the damp is worst, until Austin stirs against him.

"That mould's getting bad again," Blaine says. The smudges of grey and yellow on the ceiling stand out like old bruises.

Austin kisses his neck, still sleepy, half-submerged beneath the covers. His voice is low and scratchy, like it always is first thing in the morning, from years of too much smoking and too much singing.

"Don't look at it, then.”

"I can't help it. I've seen it now."

Austin’s kisses are soft at first, but grow wetter with teeth and tongue, soon becoming the kind that will leave marks. It is definitely not scarf season, so Blaine twists away from them.

He kisses Austin’s bicep in apology. "I want to get up. I’m hungry.”

Austin lets him slip free. He lies watching as Blaine pulls on a pair of sweats and the first t-shirt he finds. Austin’s hair is a scrambled mess and the lines of the big star-shaped tattoo on his shoulder are dark against his skin. He closes his eyes and burrows deeper into the blankets once Blaine has pulled the shirt all the way down to cover his stomach.

"You're such a pain,” Austin says. “Are you going to at least make me some tea?"

"Sure,” Blaine says, grabbing his phone from the pocket of last night’s pants.

He is picking his way down the messy hallway when the phone buzzes. He’s in the middle of clambering over Karl’s bicycle and nearly goes down headfirst when he catches his foot on a pedal because he is too busy staring at the screen.

At the start of a brand new message thread, all ready to be brought to life with replies, is the name ‘Kurt Hummel’.

Blaine sits down on the bottom step of the staircase and rubs at his scraped ankle as he types out a response.

*

 

In the kitchen, Blaine finds Natty slumped at the table. Her head is buried in her arms and her hairdo is drooping forlornly. He shakes her by the shoulder to check she hasn’t choked on her own tongue.

“Why did Austin get you last night, mate?” Natty asks, once she is sitting up again. “I wanted to go to Club De Fromage and nobody else dances like you do, but you weren’t here so I had to go with fucking Lisa and those guys.” She is still half drunk. When Blaine sets a steaming mug of tea in front of her, she seizes it gratefully.

“Austin booked me a day in advance,” Blaine says. He moves to drop the teaspoon into the sink, but freezes in horror. “Natty. Did you throw up in the sink?”

“Is he nice to you?”

“What?”

Blaine turns around. Natty is staring at him, smudge-eyed and bare-mouthed. Somebody else’s lipstick is smeared all over her collarbone.

“Is Austin nice to you?”

“Of course,” Blaine says.

“Sometimes I don’t like the way he speaks to you. I don’t think you notice it.”

“What do you mean?”

“Like you’re a simpleton,” Natty sips her tea and then continues. “A simpleton who just happens to have a hot arse and a pretty face. You do have those things. But, still.”

Her words make something twinge at the back of Blaine’s mind, some part of him that agrees with her and has been just waiting for someone else to spell it out, so that the rest of him can finally catch up.

Blaine shakes his head. “It isn’t like that.”

“Don’t be his doormat.”

“I am not a doormat.”

“Okay, well, you’re also more than he thinks you are. That’s all I’m saying.”

Natty gets up from the table. She comes to stand near him, barefoot and wobbly, and peers into the sink. “I didn’t throw up here. I only vommed in the bathroom. I don’t know who did that. Maybe it was Louis. I haven’t seen him in like, three days.”

“Great,” Blaine says.

He tries not to look the mess in the eye as he turns the tap on to wash it away.

*

 

**9:35am**  
 _Hi, Blaine. What are you doing this morning? I have an unexpected day free of rehearsal. Do you want to have that coffee? I take beverage promises very seriously..._

**9:37am**  
 _Absolutely! Where and when?_

**9:41am**  
 _About midday? Is London Bridge easy? I feel like it’s our place now. We can relive old times._

**9:43am**  
 _I’ll be there or be square._

**9:45am**  
 _You’re a square for just using that expression. But that’s okay. I like squares._

**9:46am**  
 _Let’s meet sooner. Eleven._

**9:47am**  
 _Done._

*

 

Blaine nearly doesn’t make it for eleven because he spends so long trying to choose something to wear that is suitable for both the weather and for Kurt.

He only has three Kurt outfits to go by (not counting the festival one, which had clearly been a lie). There was the jacket with those adorable lapels paired with sinfully tight jeans on the underground, then the perfect tailoring on BBC Breakfast, and finally the holy grail of Burberry shirts at Sadler’s Wells.

Blaine’s own wardrobe has never looked sadder.

In the end, he settles for a dove-grey cardigan. It had been an overpriced impulse-buy from the week before that he’d been intending to return out of guilt. Instead, Blaine rips out the tag, throws it on over a black shirt and then has to run for the bus so he won’t be late.

In the coffee shop, Blaine buys drinks for both of them and picks a seat by the windows. Kurt steps through the door a moment later. His hair is swept up in a perfect quiff and a messenger bag bounces against his thigh with each step. He spots Blaine right away, smiles and heads over.

Blaine stands up so fast he almost sends both coffee cups flying. Kurt puts one hand on his hip, though not because of the near-accident with the cups.

“Oh dear,” he says, looking Blaine up and down. “Are we already sharing clothes?”

Blaine blinks stupidly, before realising that Kurt’s dove-grey sleeves look decidedly familiar. Kurt has paired his with a white shirt and accessorised with a brooch shaped like an airplane, but they are still wearing the exact same cardigan. Blaine laughs.

“Apparently we are.”

Kurt fans himself theatrically with one hand. “My, my. Things are moving so fast, Blaine. I’m all aflutter.”

“It’s lucky I took the liberty of getting some coffee in preparation for soothing your nerves.”

“You think you can remember my order from just one observation?” Kurt raises a sceptical eyebrow. “Those aren’t good odds for you.”

“I’m very observant,” Blaine says.

Kurt swings the strap of his bag over the back of the chair and sits down in front of his coffee. Blaine sits down too, watching Kurt take a cautious sip. He leans his chin on his hand and can’t help feeling smug at the way Kurt’s expression shifts from suspicion to grudging admiration.

“How are my observational skills?” Blaine asks.

Kurt licks milk foam from his lips and sets down the cup.

“Touché, cardigan twin. Touché.”

It is a good start to a great not-date.

Conversation is easy. They talk their way through two more rounds of coffee and three slices of cheesecake, covering family, favourite places in London, the woes of high street fashion stores, Blaine’s band and Kurt’s transition from poverty-stricken NYADA student to slightly less poor West End performer.

“He says nothing, okay?” Kurt says, describing his audition with the director for the London production. “For a good two minutes, he doesn’t say a word. I'm just standing there quietly panicking inside my head. Then he gathers up his stuff and starts to leave. On his way out the door he claps me on the shoulder and goes 'I like your vibrato, kid'.”

Kurt puts on a deeper voice to imitate the director, one so far beneath his normal speaking range that it makes Blaine laugh.

“That’s literally the only thing he says. So I'm like, ‘What? Is that good? Are you making fun of me? What does it mean?’ Obviously, I'm freaking out all the way back to my apartment...”

“Obviously,” Blaine says.

“...torturing myself thinking about all of the things I could have done differently. When I get there, my roommate ─ the one who wrote the thing ─ is just getting off the phone with the director. He says, 'dude sounds like he pretty much wants to make you his wife or whatever you guys do, so I guess you're in, bro.'”

Kurt puts on another voice to imitate his roommate and Blaine can hear the exchange like he’d witnessed it firsthand. The casual lack of political correctness is all too familiar.

“That's progressive of him.”

“He's still learning what is and isn't okay to say,” Kurt says. “Most of his days are spent in a haze of weed smoke. It’s a wonder he manages to be a semi-functional human being, let alone a socially aware one. He took me straight out for tequila to celebrate, so I forgive everything. And he did write a major role in a musical for a guy like me. Those aren’t exactly a dime a dozen.”

Blaine supposes stage must be different to being in a band. But he thinks that if he were making a show, then he would certainly want someone like Kurt to star in it.

Kurt folds his arms on top of the table. “And now I’m practically running that production, if you want to listen to the BBC.”

“If you’re running it, how come you’re gallivanting round town drinking coffee while the rest of your cast are slaving away in rehearsals?” Blaine asks.

“They are doing intense focus on the lovers all day,” Kurt says, raising his coffee mug in an ironic toast. “I am not a lover, so I've been cut loose.”

Finn and Rachel have taken the train to Cambridge for an outing, and with no performances scheduled, Kurt is free all day (“Which nowadays only happens on the third Tuesday of the month, when there is a waning moon and Saturn is in correct alignment with Jupiter,” Kurt says), until a dinner party that night at the house of his director.

“Come, if you want,” Kurt says, probably because Blaine lights up at the mention of beef Wellington. “He wouldn’t mind me bringing a tagalong.”

“Where is it?”

“Balamb.”

Blaine has a rehearsal in Kilburn that starts at five. While he’s eager to spend more time with Kurt, getting to Balamb for dinner would be a mission. He makes an apologetic face.

“It takes a lot to get me to go south of the river.”

Kurt gives him a little smirk. “Is that a metaphor?”

“It could be.”

“And what, that's really more of a third date thing for you?”

It is a joke, but one that is just the wrong side of flirty. Kurt must realise, because he hastily adds, “Not that we’re on a date right now. Also, that was kind of a creepy thing for me to say. I’m not creepy by nature, honestly.”

“I don’t think you’re creepy. I think you're funny,” Blaine says, with a smile. He nods at the windows, to where the banks of the Thames are just visible. “You do realise we're south of the river already, right?”

“Barely,” Kurt says, giving Blaine a look that is half-grateful and half-indulgent. It is the same look he gave his co-star with the goatee during the BBC interview, a look between allies. “To be honest. I don't really want to go either. To the party, I mean.”

“You should come with me instead,” Blaine says, impulsively, even though it immediately feels like a mistake. “Austin will be there. You can meet the rest of the band. They’re a colourful bunch.”

“Austin,” Kurt says, a little too casually.

“What about him?” Blaine says, also casual.

Kurt pauses and presses his lips together, like he’s weighing something up. Then: “He's your housemate? Or he's your boyfriend?”

That catches Blaine off guard. “Austin would say 'boyfriend'.”

“And what would you say?”

“I'd tell you what he would say.”

Kurt narrows his eyes, clearly not content with this response. “That’s a cryptic answer.”

“He’s my boyfriend.”

The word feels weird, but it seems to satisfy Kurt, who relaxes back in his chair.

“There. That wasn’t so hard, was it?”

Blaine shrugs, feeling like a giant dork. “Sort of. I’ve never been someone’s boyfriend before.”

“Oh, Josh is my first boyfriend too.”

Kurt admits it readily, like this should be no surprise. But it is a surprise, to Blaine at least. He stares at Kurt, taking in the delicate flicker of Kurt’s eyelashes and the tight strength in his shoulders. It seems Kurt should be fighting the boys off with a baseball bat.

“Really?”

Kurt gives Blaine that look again: indulgent-grateful.

“Can’t say I had much luck at it back in good old Lima, Ohio,” Kurt says, which makes perfect sense. Sometimes it is easy to forget how different things are.

As if the mention of home breaks some kind of spell, they both fall silent. Across the table, Kurt is playing with an empty sugar packet, turning the little rectangle around and around. When he speaks next, his voice is quiet.

“You know those things you said before. About what happened to you at school?”

Long stretches of unprotected hallway. Prickle of stares on the back of his neck. The shudder of a fist colliding with bone. Blood in his mouth, sharp like copper.

Blaine blinks the memories away.

“Yes.”

Kurt glances up. “I can understand. Relate, I mean. Empathise.”

Their eyes meet and Blaine gets a hideous sinking sensation in his stomach. He doesn’t want those memories and Kurt to ever come together, but he can see it is too late for that. They are already intimately acquainted.

Blaine lets out a slow breath and stares down at the table, finding the edge of a napkin to occupy his own fingers.

“I’m really disappointed to hear that,” he says. “I didn’t want something like that to have happened to you too.”

He looks up again to find Kurt staring at him. The sugar packet is screwed up in Kurt’s fist.

“I’ve never told another person about this,” Kurt says. “Not all of it.”

The coffee shop is crowded. Sunlight pours through the windows, making it feel stuffy and enclosed. Blaine puts both hands against their table and pushes his chair back.

“Do you want to go for a walk?” he suggests. Kurt nods.

*

 

They walk as far as the Royal Festival Hall, then halfway back again. Kurt talks, while Blaine listens.

It all sounds fairly standard at first, the kind of stuff Blaine went through himself. But then Kurt says the name ‘Dave Karofsky’ and runs the words ‘hate’ and ‘kiss’ together like they are one thing. That’s when Blaine realises they are having a different conversation to the one they started.

“You know it isn’t your fault that happened,” he says, when Kurt reaches the end of his story. “Please tell me somebody already told you that.”

Kurt doesn’t reply and keeps on walking, so Blaine grabs his sleeve and makes him stop. “Kurt. You didn’t force him to act that way.”

They have paused near the skate ramps. Skaters sweep up and down, riding waves of graffiti. Kurt shakes his head. He stares in the opposite direction, towards the grey water of the river.

“It’s from a different life, all that stuff,” Kurt says. He looks down at Blaine’s hand on his sleeve until Blaine lets go. “What time is your rehearsal? I don’t want you to miss it.”

*

 

In the end, Kurt comes along to Kilburn. Blaine is glad. After their conversation he feels protective, like he doesn’t want to let Kurt out of his sight.

They talk about normal things on the bus ride. Books and movies. No childhood traumas.

“What's your favourite movie?” Kurt asks, grabbing a nearby pole as the bus swings around a corner.

“Tell me yours first.”

“ _Coco Before Chanel_ ,” Kurt says, with a hint of pride.

“That's a good one,” Blaine says. “Now I feel bad about mine.”

“Don’t be silly. Of course you shouldn’t.” Kurt lets go of the pole so that he can look at Blaine properly. “Wait, though. What is it? Maybe you should feel bad.”

“ _Back to the Future_ ,” Blaine says, with a sheepish grin. “It was my brother's favourite when I was a kid. I had a huge crush on Marty Mcfly.”

Kurt gapes at him. “No! You didn't.”

“I did.”

“He's miniature.”

“Well...” Blaine looks pointedly down at his own body.

“Okay, terrible taste in men aside, that's still not a valid choice.”

“What do you mean?”

“You said it was your brother's favourite. I wanted to know yours.”

Blaine can’t think of a favourite of his own. So, that’s when they move onto books instead.

*

 

The rehearsal is in a pub on Kilburn High Road, where the landlord is a friend of Karl’s. It is the wrong end of Kilburn, where the buildings are scruffy and unwelcoming and people keep their hoods pulled up to hide their faces. Blaine sees the way Kurt’s expression changes when they step off the bus, and knows exactly what he is thinking.

“It’s not as rough round here as it looks,” Blaine promises, guiding them across the street. “One time I thought a guy in a hoodie was trying to rob me, but he was actually pulling me out of the way of a bus. I had my earbuds in and didn’t hear it. He gave me this whole lecture about road safety afterwards. So basically, don’t feel too bad about leaving your stab-vest at home. We’re totally safe.”

“You had your life saved by a hoodie,” Kurt says, incredulously, as they approach the pub’s threshold. He glances up at the shabby sign above the door. “I suppose there’s a lesson there about books and covers.”

The rehearsal room is above the main bar, past the restrooms and up a narrow flight of stairs. It is part of the landlord’s house and not open to the public. Blaine and Kurt are the last to arrive. Everyone else is already gathered round a table of drinks when they get there. The instruments sit forgotten in the corner.

“Blaine!” Louis stands up and embraces him. He has a cigarette between his lips. “Sorry about the sink, mate.”

Blaine pats him on the back. “I thought you were dead in a gutter.”

“Not yet.” Louis turns his head and exhales smoke over his shoulder in a half-hearted attempt to not breathe it all in Blaine’s face. “What have you brought us?” he asks, nodding in Kurt’s direction.

“This is Kurt, a friend from Ohio,” Blaine says. “He’s working in London for a while.”

This isn’t a totally truthful introduction, but it still seems too strange to introduce him as someone Blaine met on the underground a few days earlier.

Louis shakes Kurt’s hand a bit too vigorously. “Welcome aboard, Kurt. Any friend of Blaine’s, etcetera.”

“Thank you,” Kurt says, accepting the seat that Louis pulls out for him. The only chair left is next to Austin, so Blaine takes that.

“Are you guys wearing matching sweaters?” Natty asks. She has pulled herself together since this morning and is now looking back and forth between them.

“Yes,” Kurt tells her. “But we didn’t plan to. It was just a disastrous coincidence.”

Austin pushes a glass of cider in Blaine’s direction. “Get that down you. We’re hitting the Jäger next. Karl’s already gone for another round. What are you drinking, Kurt? Fuck it. Take this one. We’ve been lining them up. Aspall, yeah?”

Austin hands another glass over to Kurt, and then lays his arm along the back of Blaine’s chair. His pupils look funny. He and Louis have clearly been taking something, which never leads to productive rehearsal time. Blaine is tempted to ask for Kurt’s pint back, so that he can taste it himself first.

“I thought we were practising?” Blaine says.

“Figured we’d get a couple of rounds in before we knock out some tunes.” Louis drops ash from the end of his cigarette into an empty pint glass. “And we need to have a summit meeting about the gig on Saturday.”

“That can wait,” Natty says. She is staring at Kurt with rapt interest, in a way that makes Blaine nervous. There is not exactly cover to be blown, but if there was, he feels certain that Natty would be the one to blow it. “How long have you known Blaine?”

Kurt swallows his mouthful of cider and wipes his lips delicately with his fingertips.

“Oh, God. I don’t know,” he says, looking to Blaine for his cue.

“A while,” Blaine lies.

“Forever,” Kurt says, quick to catch on. “At least, it seems like forever.”

Natty stares at him and raises a hand thoughtfully. For a moment, Blaine thinks she might be about to touch Kurt’s face. But then her hand drops and she snaps her fingers in recognition.

“Are you from the television? From the news? You are.”

“Guilty,” Kurt says.

“Man, Blaine just loved that,” Natty says with a delighted laugh. “He nearly spilt cereal all down himself.”

Before Blaine can try to deny it, Karl elbows his way to the table. He dumps an avalanche of bags of chips and then begins to set down pint after pint.

*

 

They don’t get down to discussing their set for Saturday until everyone is on their second Jägerbomb. None of them have eaten dinner. Kurt’s pale cheeks are flushed pink. Natty keeps laughing in the middle of sentences. Blaine himself feels muddled enough that he answers honestly when Louis asks him what cover he would like to lead with.

“God, Blaine.” Austin grimaces, as though the mere mention of Beyoncé’s name causes him physical pain.

“It’s anthemic,” Blaine protests.

“Do you want to be more Top Forty?”

“Natty’s singing ‘Primadona’. Isn’t that Top Forty?”

“That’s different.”

“How is it different?”

“Jesus, fuck. Are you trying to bring us down from the inside or something?”

“Woah. Hold on, here,” Karl says. “I think ‘End of Time’ could be a great opener.”

Austin glares at him. “You’re only siding with him because that song is totally percussion-heavy.”

“Hey. Percussion is fucking underrated,” Karl says, pointing his finger at Austin’s face.

“Louis, what do you think?” Natty asks. She lays a supportive hand on Blaine’s thigh. “I can do the harmonies.”

The band doesn’t have a hierarchy, but if it did, Louis would be at the top. He has been leaning back in his chair and watching the discussion from afar, while chewing on the end of a plastic drinking straw. Now, he sits forwards.

“I think the arrangement would be tricky as fuck,” Louis says. He looks at Blaine thoughtfully. “Though I guess that’s exactly what would make it unexpected.”

“If we want to be really unexpected, we should have Blaine get up there and try to sing some Azealia Banks,” Natty says, in an attempt to lighten the mood. “I’d pay good money to see that.”

Karl laughs. “Blaine can’t sing that. What does he know about eating cunt?”

“He knows about plenty of other things,” Austin says and then downs the rest of his drink.

An awkward silence falls. After a moment, Kurt clears his throat and stands up.

“I believe it must be my round,” he says. “Are there any takers?”

*

 

Blaine goes to the bar and stands there uselessly while Kurt orders the drinks. That little part of his mind that agrees with Natty is mortified right now.

“They’re so vulgar. I’m sorry, Kurt. I can’t imagine what you must think of us. You know they’re all smacked out of their minds, right? I shouldn’t have brought you.”

If Kurt is ruffled by the behaviour of Blaine’s friends, he doesn’t show it. He hands over his plastic to pay for the drinks, then leans against the bar and looks at Blaine.

“You know, people told me I shouldn’t do Beyoncé too, back in high school,” Kurt says. “I ignored them. No regrets. In fact, when I auditioned for _Midsummer_...”

“You sang Beyoncé?”

“No. I sang Madonna’s ‘Live to Tell’. But it’s comparable.”

Blaine can absolutely imagine that. He is sure it must have been haunting.

“I bet that suited you,” he says. “Your voice, I mean. I bet you made it work.”

Kurt smiles. “And I bet you could rock Beyoncé.” He seizes a couple of glasses and pulls them towards him across the bar. “Now, will you help me get these drinks upstairs?”

*

 

They drink their way through Kurt’s round and then one more. By that point Blaine can hardly feel his feet. The chances of this now becoming a legitimate rehearsal are practically non-existent. When Kurt catches his eye from across the table and mouths “I need to go home,” Blaine is all too ready to leave with him.

Neither of them knows the right bus from here to Notting Hill, so they head for the overground instead, because Blaine can at least remember what direction that is in.

“You don’t need to wait with me,” Kurt says, as they walk down the stairs to the platform.

“I will, though,” Blaine says. The area is not as rough as it looks but there’s no reason to take chances on a deserted train platform in the middle of the night. He stops just inside the wind shelter and puts his hands in his pockets. Kurt comes to stand close to him.

“It’s starting to rain,” Kurt says. “You’ll have to walk back by yourself.”

“I don’t mind. I’ll call the guys to come meet me.”

The trains here are infrequent, but it doesn’t take long for one to arrive. The pale headlights sweep along the tracks. They step out into the rain and follow a set of doors until they slide open.

“Bye,” Kurt says.

“I’ll text you,” says Blaine.

He leans in to kiss Kurt’s cheek and Kurt leans in to accept it, but they get muddled somehow, going opposite directions, so that Blaine’s lips end up at the corner of Kurt’s mouth. Blaine is about to pull away, but Kurt turns his head that extra centimetre.

And then they are kissing.

It is not long or deep or dramatic, but it feels certain. It feels like something that is supposed to happen. Blaine inhales, breathing the moment in. He parts his lips and feels the first brush of Kurt’s tongue, hot and silky against his own.

It is the sound of the train which puts a stop to it, the alarm signalling the doors about to close.

Flustered, Kurt pulls away and steps onto the train, Blaine still clinging to his hand until Kurt has to withdraw it or have it crushed in the closing doors.

It all happens too fast.

Kurt stands illuminated in the doorway as the carriage starts to move. Then, in a rush of clattering air, the train is gone and Blaine is left alone.

At first, he is angry at himself for not getting on the train too, but that idea makes so much unravel and Blaine is too drunk to deal with it. He ends up just sitting in the shelter, holding his head in his hands and wondering if he might throw up.

It takes Blaine a while to realise that he is shivering, even though it is not a cold night. It takes even longer to make himself stand up and walk back to the bar, where Austin and the band are waiting for him.


	5. Chapter 5

The platform is deserted. The rain is just beginning to fall and the air is crisp and cool. One lonely streetlight shines.

Inside the wind shelter, Blaine sits on the thin strip of metal that is a pathetic excuse for a bench. It is uncomfortable, but he hardly notices. 

Kurt is standing right in front of him, wearing the clinging suit from BBC Breakfast. He is so close that he has had to step his legs apart and stand astride Blaine’s knees. Blaine has his hands on Kurt’s hips and can feel the silky fine material beneath his thumbs.

“I feel like I’m supposed to save you,” Blaine says, looking up at him.

Kurt touches him, his face, his hair. Then he sinks down, so that he is sitting on Blaine’s thighs. Blaine holds his waist to steady him. Kurt’s body is not heavy or light, but feels perfectly right here.

“Save me from what?”

Blaine doesn’t have an answer to that, so he just puts his mouth against Kurt’s neck and kisses the pale skin there.

Kurt hums, a noise of agreement. He moves backwards, sliding off Blaine’s thighs and settling between them. He drags his fingers over Blaine’s body as he goes, from shoulders down across chest and then further still, to where Blaine is hard inside his jeans. Holding Blaine’s gaze, he unpops the button and reaches inside.

It has started to rain now. Each falling droplet is illuminated by the light overhanging the platform. Kurt works Blaine easily, his grip slow and careful. They are in no rush. There is nobody to find them. 

Kurt has sunk lower, right down to his knees. When Blaine touches his cheek, he turns his head and kisses Blaine’s palm. He is beautiful like this - beautiful always, but especially like this - with the night shadows and the angled light bringing the lines of his face into clearer focus. When he stares up at Blaine through his eyelashes, it makes Blaine’s breath catch.

“Maybe I’ll be the one to save you,” Kurt says, and Blaine can’t think of a more intelligent response than, “Yes.” 

Kurt smiles at him. He licks his lips until they are shining wet, and then lowers them to the tip of Blaine’s cock. 

The teasing pressure of his mouth is electric. Blaine’s hips buck, but Kurt holds him steady, going at his own pace. He works carefully down, bit by bit, his tongue flexing and the suction coming in measured pulses, like the beats in a bar. 

Blaine gropes for something to hold onto, finding nothing but metal and glass, and presses a hand to the wall of the shelter, to try to keep anchored. 

He wants to pull Kurt up towards him, so he can kiss him on the mouth, but he can’t reach him, can’t do anything but lean helpless against the wall, trying to keep his moans from echoing all the way down the platform. 

But then it is not a platform, it is a carriage. Kurt is kneeling on the train floor and the whole thing is shuddering around them, racing at speed. Blaine is saying Kurt’s name again and again, the word coming in gasps and catching on his teeth. 

Overcome, Blaine tilts back his head. The lights above him are bright, bright, bright.

And then he wakes, caught up in Austin’s arms.

*

Blaine waits three whole days before he contacts Kurt, only partly because of the dream. 

Louis has finally sobered up enough to remember that they are meeting with an agent in less than a week and suddenly starts cracking the whip for genuine rehearsal time. That coincides with an essay deadline and a group presentation on Saussure. Between clinging wearily to his microphone as Louis and Austin argue over the finer points of the arrangement, and drinking cup after cup of black coffee while hunched over his laptop, Blaine doesn’t have much room in his head for anything else, including the unsettling mess of emotions that are all tangled up with the boy from the underground.

Only when the dream repeats and Blaine once again wakes up sticky in Austin’s arms, does he realise that trying to bury his head in the sand is not going to work.

The band is playing a gig on Saturday, two days after they are due to meet with the agent. It seems like the perfect occasion – public place, lots of other friends, innocent motivation. On the morning before the meeting, while Blaine is waiting for the kettle to boil, he texts Kurt to invite him along to the gig. 

The reply appears instantly, before Blaine can put his phone down, almost even before he hits ‘send’. It seems impossible that Kurt could have typed a response so fast, but then Blaine reads the message and realises what must have happened. 

_Hey, Beyonce. I’m having a shindig this evening. 6pm. It would be good to see you. I’ll even roll out the red carpet if you say you’ll make an appearance..._

Blaine is in the middle of typing a response when the call comes. He answers halfway through the first ring. 

“Did we just text each other at the same time?” Kurt’s voice in his ear as soon as the call connects: high and lovely and incredulous. 

“I think so. It seemed pretty simultaneous.”

“I thought my phone had some kind of electronic fit.”

Blaine laughs and rests his forehead against the nearest cupboard, feeling something warm flood though him.

“Hi,” he says. 

“Hello.”

He can hear the smile in Kurt’s greeting. It makes him picture Kurt’s face, which brings the memory of Kurt’s lips moving against his own, memory that is confused with dreaming, of blue eyes staring up above tight wet heat, as Kurt smiled around his dick and swallowed him down...

“Listen, it’s not a big deal,” Blaine says quickly. “I mean the other night, at the station. We were both drunk.”

There is a pause over the line. Then: “We were.”

Kurt sounds so together that it makes Blaine feel together too. It makes everything feel honestly normal, like it really _isn’t_ a big deal at all. 

“I’ve kissed, like, _all_ my friends,” Blaine says. He runs one hand back and forth across the countertop. “I’m kind of an affection slut. Now you’re initiated too.”

“Is that so? I’m honoured,” Kurt says. “Well, since we’re real friends now...”

“Yes, we are.”

“Rachel and Finn are leaving town tomorrow and I’m having a little soiree to see them off. Will you come?”

*

The meeting with the agent is late - 9:45pm at a place in Soho, an easy bus ride from Notting Hill Gate - and the thought of seeing Kurt is just too tempting. That’s how Blaine finds himself stepping out of an elevator and knocking on the door of a sweet little apartment, dressed for the meeting and carrying a six-pack under one arm. 

Kurt opens the door with a grin on his face, halfway through laughing at someone else’s joke, though his expression changes to something different when he sees Blaine standing on his doorstep. 

“You came,” he says. He sounds a little breathless. The sight of him makes Blaine’s whole body tingle.

“I said I would.” Blaine hefts the case of cider from under his arm. “And I brought booze. I hear that’s the done thing.”

“You heard correct.” Kurt steps aside, waving Blaine through the door. “You and your booze are always welcome at my humble abode. Or rather, the humble abode that is being graciously rented on our behalf.”

Kurt lives with a cast mate called Isabel, the woman with red hair, who plays Hermia in _Midsummer_. The apartment is incredibly nice, with real wooden floors instead of laminate, clean walls and fresh-looking furnishings in soft colours. There is already a modest crowd in the living room, standing with drinks in hand. 

Blaine gets a little thrill when Kurt links their arms to lead him into the kitchen, where Rachel is pouring wine into glasses. She hugs Blaine enthusiastically, pressing her hot cheek against his.

“I’m sorry,” she says, giggling as she pulls away. “I’ve already had three wines.”

“Hey, Kurt. Hey.” Finn scampers out of a doorway, his feet sliding on the kitchen tiles. He’s like an overexcited dog charging around a home that is too small for it. He is brandishing a cell phone, which he shoves at Kurt. “Speak to Puck.” 

Kurt stares at him. “You are going home _tomorrow_ , Finn. Are long distance phone calls necessary? Can’t your bromance survive untended?”

“Come on, dude. He wants to say hi. I’ll put him on speaker.” Finn fumbles with the phone for a moment, then shouts at the screen: “Dude, you’re go for Kurt.”

Blaine is standing in between them. The phone is held out right in front of him. He can see the caller ID photo; a man with a round, attractive face and a Mohawk is holding up one arm and kissing his tanned bicep. It is totally homoerotic in a _Top Gun_ kind of way. 

Blaine glances sideways at Finn, because perhaps there’s some stuff there that’s going unaddressed. He can’t get too psychological though, because the voice which blares over the phone’s speaker is not one that can be ignored. 

“Whassup, baby Puck?” the voice yells. “Boy, are you done going Ripley on me yet, or what?” 

“Oh my God,” says Kurt, snatching the phone from Finn’s hand. He turns off the speaker and then makes apologetic eyes at Blaine as he lifts the phone to his ear and steps out into the hallway.

Blaine watches him go. He tries not to make it obvious which part of Kurt’s body he is staring at, but he still jumps when a heavy arm drops around his shoulders. He looks up - a long way up - to Finn’s grinning face.

“Blaine. Let’s drink, brother.”

*

Drinking is, at least, something that Blaine’s had plenty of practice at. More practice than Finn and Rachel, it seems. They both get very messy, very fast.

Blaine sits in the corner of the sofa, sweating under the weight of Finn’s arm, which is still around his shoulders. The bottle of beer in Finn’s hand is dripping condensation onto his shirt. Rachel sits on a footstool in front of them, swaying a little from all the wine. 

These guys are good people. That much is obvious. They feel like family. Maybe it’s an Ohio thing. As much as Blaine hates that place and all of the bad memories attached, it is still nice to be around people who don’t add extra letters to all of their words. 

“We had another one of these,” Finn says, bending the arm he has around Blaine, so he can bring his beer to his mouth, “...these apartment party things when we first got here. That was awesome.”

Rachel nearly falls off her stool in excitement. “There was karaoke,” she yelps, “It was perfection. Actual, physical... _perfection_.”

Kurt appears at that point, catching Blaine’s eye and raising his eyebrows in a way that says ‘Do you see now? Do you see what my life is like?’

He sits down beside Finn and hands him back his phone.

“Puck wanted you to know that he’s probably going to have a threesome tonight. With three different girls. When I suggested that he was perhaps adding that up wrong, he told me that I just didn’t understand about sleeping with women.” Kurt reaches over and takes the dripping bottle of beer from Finn’s hand. “Which is a fair point.”

It is only as Kurt is bringing the bottle to his lips that Finn seems to notice he’s there. 

“Kurt got so drunk that night,” he says, with a dopey grin. “Man, you were wrecked. He got so drunk that he sang ‘Call Me Maybe’ with Rachel.”

“Yes!” Rachel says, clapping her hands in delight.

“Uh oh,” Blaine says, though this actually sounds beyond adorable. 

“It’s true,” Kurt admits. “That happened.”

“He danced on a table too.”

“Okay-”

“And the table broke.”

“Yes. Thank you, Finn,” Kurt pushes the beer back into Finn’s hand in a bid to shut him up. “We won’t be having a repeat performance tonight. You can be sure of that.”

“It’s lucky I was there to catch you.”

“Indeed. It’s lucky I have a brother large enough for such eventualities.”

“Hey,” Finn punches Kurt’s shoulder. “You ain’t heavy. Because you’re my brother.”

Kurt rolls his eyes in exasperation as he stands up. “Come on, Blaine,” he says, “I’ll give you the tour.”

There isn’t much to tour. The apartment only has five rooms, bathroom included. Maybe that’s why they find themselves standing beside Kurt’s bedroom window, looking out over the dark street. The room isn’t really decorated, as such. There is a collection of photographs taped around the mirror and a few books on the shelves, but everything still looks temporary. It is clear that the person living here has not been willing to put down roots.

Blaine is saying something about how hard it is to balance his band rehearsals with not flunking out of college, when Kurt tilts his head and stares at him with wide eyes.

“Are you in college? I thought you were a musician,” Kurt says, his voice high with surprise. Blaine pauses, copying Kurt’s head tilt. It seems strange to think that there are actually plenty of things they still don’t know about each other.

“Has that not come up yet? Have I not told you that?”

“Oh my God,” Kurt says, “you’re a baby.”

“It’s my final year,” Blaine protests.

“When’s your birthday?”

“May.”

Kurt nods. “I’m six months older than you.”

“So, I’m not a baby at all.”

“We’re both babies.” Kurt turns away from the window and leans his hip against the windowsill. “What do you study?”

“Philosophy with English.” 

“Interesting.”

Blaine turns too, so that they’re facing each other. “I didn’t want to spoil music by turning it into something I’m forced to do. I like words and ideas, I guess. I have that Romantic disposition. I should have been born in the eighteenth century.”

“So that you could die of consumption?”

Kurt’s smile is getting bigger by the second. Blaine can’t help smiling back. 

“So I’d be super enlightened.”

“Okay.”

“That’s a history joke.”

“A really poor one. Lucky history isn’t your major.”

Blaine doesn’t mind the teasing. He’s just pleased Kurt is smart enough to understand the joke is bad.

“I like lyrics,” Blaine says. “I’m interested in the different ways songs can be interpreted. I just wrote an essay about lyric poetry and songs by Hey Monday. Yeah,” he grins, “I’m that kind of music geek.”

“Do you write for your band?”

“We mostly use Austin’s songs.”

“Why not yours?”

Blaine shrugs, turning his attention to the curtains, which are plain calico, rough to the touch.

“It’s just a different vibe, the stuff I write.”

There is a pause where Blaine is certain Kurt is going to ask him questions he doesn’t want to answer. But then Kurt surprises him by saying, “I write too. Musical theatre. That’s what I’d love to do most. Even more than performing.” 

He must see the confusion on Blaine’s face, because he quickly adds, “Don’t get me wrong, this part’s great. I’m so grateful to have it. But I don’t really know where I’m supposed to go from here.” He smirks ruefully and waves a hand up and down his body, from his pretty face to his slender waist. “You might have noticed that I’m not exactly the Danny Zuko type.”

“Shut up,” Blaine tells him. “You’re amazing.” 

Kurt’s cheeks turn a little pink at that. “Broadway doesn’t think so.”

He is trying to smile, to project the right thing with his face, but his eyes are saying something different. Blaine knows this. He knows the exact feeling. He feels it every time he sticks his neck out in rehearsal and gets knocked down. 

“How many Danny Zukos are already out there?” Blaine says. “About a million. Who wants to be like Danny Zuko? What an asshole.”

That makes Kurt laugh, the expression on his face coming back together again.

The party is getting louder on the other side of the door, but Blaine likes it in here, in the cosy, lamp-lit neutrality of the unclaimed bedroom. 

Instead of returning to the living room, they end up lying together on the bed and discussing their first times: Blaine’s when he was sixteen (older guy, student at community college, emotionless but passable) and Kurt’s at eighteen (first week at NYADA, end of a freshman bar crawl, name unknown).

“I had no idea what I was doing,” Kurt says, “I don’t even really remember it. The only way I could even be sure it happened was the physical evidence all over my room.”

Blaine half sits up in alarm. “Ew, Kurt.”

“I had to clean jizz off my curtains. That’s not a joke.”

“What were you doing?”

“If only I could remember,” Kurt says. He bats his lashes. “It must have been wild.” 

Blaine knows his eyes must look like saucers. Kurt holds his gaze for a moment, then laughs. “No, it is a joke. Of course it’s a joke,” he says. “Sex is disgusting, though.”

Blaine slumps back down, and tries not to imagine all the ways you might actually end up getting come on your curtains. “That’s part of the fun.”

“And awkward.”

“It shouldn’t be awkward.”

Kurt rolls over. He looks at Blaine closely, propped up on one elbow. He has the expression on his face which Blaine has already learnt means that he is doing a mental trial run on something he is about to say. Blaine stares back at him and waits.

“I don’t like sex much,” Kurt says. 

Blaine blinks up at him. “What?”

“I mean, it’s fine. But I don’t think it’s everything that people make it out to be. With Josh it’s the best it’s been, but I think I’m always going to feel uncomfortable about it. I know that makes me weird.”

Blaine is about to disagree, say something comforting, like how there is no such thing as ‘normal’ when it comes to sex. Or something less appropriate, like no fucking wonder, considering Kurt’s first intimate touch came from a sexual assault.

“I think sex is great,” is what Blaine actually says.

Kurt’s eyelashes flutter again. He stays right there, leaning on one elbow, and Blaine is suddenly very aware of just how close together they are lying. Kurt licks his lips.

“Maybe I’m not doing it right,” he says.

“Maybe you’re not.” 

It is a tipping moment. Blaine can feel it in the air. He is about to pick a direction to lean when what seems like the loudest noise in the world startles him out of his skin.

It is Rachel, knocking on the door. The gesture is pointless, because she flings it open before anyone gives her permission to enter. “Kurt? Hi,” she says, stopping short. “Sorry. Am I-” She blinks very fast and steadies her drunk legs with a hand to the wall. “Am I interrupting?”

Kurt sits up quickly. “No. Not interrupting.”

“We just-” For a moment Rachel looks like she can’t remember what she came here for. Then she snaps her fingers. “We need a ladle. Do you have a ladle?”

“Probably.” 

When Kurt climbs off the bed, Blaine feels the extra distance like a physical pull. But then Kurt pauses in the doorway and looks back, beckoning with a tilt of his head. “Come help find the ladle, Blaine.”

Outside of the bedroom, things are sloppier than they were before. The music is louder. In the hallway, they walk past Kurt’s flatmate making out with some guy. 

The second they enter the kitchen, Finn is all over the place, groping for shoulders to prop him up. 

“Blaine,” Finn cheers, once he recognises whose shirt he’s holding onto. “Dude, you’re- He’s great. Kurt! I think Blaine’s great.”

Kurt is standing on his tiptoes and rummaging in a cupboard, searching for ladles. He’s distracted by Rachel tugging at him and is clearly not listening to what Finn is saying.

“Thanks,” Blaine says, struggling a little under Finn’s weight. “That’s kind of you.”

“No, seriously, bro,” Finn says, pointing an empty beer bottle at Blaine’s face. “You are so much better than the other guy. He’s a fucking loser, man. A sneaky fucking loser.”

Rachel turns round suddenly, so fast that she stumbles and has to grab Kurt for support, nearly making him drop the metal ladle in his hand.

“Finn,” she snaps. “You don’t get to talk like that. If Josh is Kurt’s choice, then we support him one hundred per cent. Even if Blaine is clearly just lovely and perfect for him in every way…” 

“Rachel,” Kurt says in alarm.

But she is mid-rant. She barrels on. “It is not your place to dictate who is or isn’t right for someone. It doesn’t matter what rumours Santana’s told you about things she thinks she saw…”

Finn makes a shushing sound. He doesn’t do it well. It comes out more spit than shush. Blaine has to wipe his cheek discreetly.

“…You should never listen to Santana anyway and besides, if she’s going to be telling anyone that stuff then she should be telling it to Kurt and not to you.”

“She saw him with another boy,” Finn blurts.

There is a crack as Kurt slams the ladle down against the countertop.

“Oh my God, stop,” he says. “Stop it, Finn. I’m not an idiot. I know what he’s doing. And I know why he’s doing it.” He looks at Rachel. “Because he is painfully jealous that I’ve had more success than him.”

She nods, with eager understanding. “Of course. Such a common problem for showbiz couples. It’s like you’re Reese Witherspoon and he’s Ryan Phillippe.”

“Exactly.”

“Then you’re gonna just let him cheat on you?” Finn slurs. He lurches towards Kurt. Blaine has to hurry forwards with him, to stop him from falling.

“Oh no,” Kurt says, dangerously low. “No, no, no.”

“Because honestly, dude, this whole thing kind of makes me want to call your dad right now and see what he has to say about it.”

“Believe me,” Kurt says. “I am not taking this lying down.” He looks over and meets Blaine’s eyes for the first time since they left the bedroom. “Excuse the pun.”

“It was a brilliant pun,” Blaine says, immediately. He is still mentally reeling from the direction the conversation has taken.

Kurt picks up Rachel’s abandoned glass of wine from the counter by the stove. “But I am far too classy to dump someone over Skype, regardless of the circumstances.”

“Good for you,” says Rachel.

Kurt tips back the wine and then sets the empty glass down again. “Besides, I want to be able to physically kick him in the balls when I do it.”

Finn laughs, stumbling forwards to clap Kurt on the shoulder. Without that weight pressing him down, Blaine feels suddenly light and woozy.

“My boyfriend is possessive and controlling and never wants me to have any say in anything,” Blaine says, without thinking. It is not something he has ever said out loud before. He isn’t sure what makes him say it now, in a room full of near-strangers.

Finn, Rachel and Kurt all stare at him. 

“Though, if I break up with him then I’ll basically be homeless,” Blaine adds, “which isn’t totally ideal.”

After a beat, Finn says, “Being homeless probably isn’t a fun time.”

The mention of Austin triggers something in Blaine’s mind. With a horrible jolt he remembers the meeting with the agent. Stomach sinking, he pulls his silent phone out of his pocket and sees that he already has so many missed calls that they don’t all fit on the screen. 

The clock reads 10:15pm.


	6. Chapter 6

They have a screaming fight, all five of them, back in their living room. At first there might have been sides to take, but things have quickly descended into everyone throwing cheap shots at everyone else. 

At one point Blaine literally, physically gets down on his knees to apologise, knowing full well that it won’t be enough even before Austin tells him so.

“You don’t give a shit about us,” Austin says, hauling Blaine to his feet. “Not you and me ‘us’. The band. You don’t give a shit about the band.”

“What are you talking about? Of course I give a shit,” Blaine says, upset. “Of course I do. I’ve put as much of my blood and sweat into this as any of us─”

“If you gave a shit then you would have been there,” Austin shouts.

It is enough to snap Blaine temporarily out of his remorse. In an instant they are squaring up to one another. Everything feels hot and dangerous in a way Blaine hasn’t experienced since the last time a bunch of guys cornered him in high school. He hates to fight, but if someone pushes him then he is not afraid to push back. 

Blaine is so caught up in his own anger that he hardly registers Louis calling him a ‘spoilt fucking brat’ until Natty comes violently to his defence.

The rest of them manage to pull her off him, but not before she has smashed a glass picture frame by shoving Louis hard against it.

The anger all drains away after that. Natty storms out, slamming the front door. Karl starts to go after her but hesitates, like he thinks leaving Blaine and Austin and Louis alone together is the worst things he could do right now.

Austin tugs his shirt straight from where holding onto Natty has shoved it halfway up his ribs.

“I’ll go,” he says, “I don’t want to be here dealing with this.” He looks right at Blaine as he says it. 

The door slams a second time.

In the silence that follows, Louis slides down the wall, until he’s sitting on the floor. His boots crunch pieces of broken glass.

“Fucking hell,” Karl says. “This has been too long coming.” 

Blaine agrees, but doesn’t say so. He feels like he’s already done plenty to mess things up tonight. 

From his glassy corner, Louis mutters, “We could be so good if we didn’t keep on fucking ourselves over all the time.” 

He pulls supplies out of his pocket and sets about rolling a joint. They all know they aren’t allowed to smoke in the house. There’s a line about it in the rental agreement. Karl gets on the floor too and hands Louis his lighter. 

“When it’s meant to be, it’ll happen,” Karl says. “It’s all about fucking luck.”

Louis exhales the ripe-smelling smoke. “Nope. It’s about getting out there and seizing it. It can’t be luck. I can’t believe it’s luck.”

Blaine watches them pass the joint back and forth, feeling tired down to his bones. He leaves them smoking on the floor and goes to his bedroom, where two new texts are waiting on his phone. Both are from Kurt.

**23:06**  
 _I’m sorry things are hard tonight. I’m thinking of you._

**23:17**  
 _p.s. if you find yourself homeless, Isabel and I have a couch with your name on it._

They are simple, friendly messages but something about them strikes just the right nerve. Blaine’s throat grows tight and his eyes start to sting. He turns off the phone, strips off his clothes and climbs into bed feeling homesick. Not for Ohio, but for somewhere far away, where there are no bands, no essays, no mildew. No boyfriends who aren’t boyfriends. 

Nothing.

*

Austin doesn’t come home all night, so Blaine tosses and turns alone in their bed, wracking his brain for a way to fix things. 

By morning he has a plan. Step one: find out how to reach that producer. Step two: track him down and throw himself on his mercy.

Karl is lying face down on one of the sofas, snoring loudly. His arm is dangling over the side and there is a patch of drool beneath his open mouth. Blaine finds Louis in the kitchen. He is leaning back in a chair with his feet up on the table. His eyes are bloodshot like he hasn't slept, though he seems pretty lucid when he shoves a chair out for Blaine.

There are cigarette butts strewn over the table, surrounding a half-drunk cup of tea. Blaine sits, eyeing the dirty soles of Louis’s boots until Louis swings his legs down with a sigh.

“Blaine, I’m sorry I said those things last night. I do think you’re kind of spoilt. But I shouldn’t have added the ‘fucking’ part. That was rude.”

Blaine shakes his head, because Louis shouldn’t be the one apologising. 

Louis sweeps cigarette butts onto his palm and drops them into the remains of the tea, where they float like buoys. He dusts the ash from his hands and then looks up at Blaine with a serious expression. 

“I’m going to ask you something and I want you to be honest with me.”

“Okay,” Blaine says. 

“That boy. Kurt. Are you doing the dirty with him behind Austin’s back?”

It’s the last thing Blaine is expecting. Images rush at him from all directions: Kurt on his knees, Kurt in his lap, Kurt’s mouth on his neck, Kurt’s fingers spreading warmth as they curl inside of him. Blaine can feel the blush flooding his face. It is taking him too long to answer. 

“I’m not judging if you are,” Louis says. “I know how Aus can be.” 

“No,” Blaine says quickly. “No, it’s not that. We haven’t. I wouldn’t cheat.” 

That last part sounds like a lie. Perhaps it is one. After all, the kiss on the platform was not a dream.

Louis’s chair creaks as he leans further back. He studies Blaine thoughtfully, like he’s trying to piece things together.

“So what’s the deal with you guys?”

And isn’t that the million dollar question? 

“I don’t know,” Blaine says. Talking about it this makes him feel shaky, the way he does before a test or before going on stage. “The first time I met him I just felt something. Something important.”

“I don’t understand,” Louis says. “So why didn’t you guys ever date before? Back in America or whatever.”

“Because I met him a week ago. On the tube.”

Louis’s eyes go wide. “You’ve only known that boy a week?”

“I think I’m in love with him,” Blaine admits.

“Mate. What the fuck?”

“I don’t want to be homeless.”

“Bloody hell. Give me a minute. You think you’re in love with someone after a week? No way.” Louis leans forwards urgently. “Anderson, listen to me. Love is bullshit. Okay? It’s a made up thing which people buy into because they need some fairy tale to help them deal with the numbing mundanity of their sad little lives. You want to tap something? Go tap it, yeah? But don’t call it ‘love’. That’s just your mind playing tricks on you, mate."

The kitchen tap is dripping into the sink that was full of vomit just days before. The tile above the stove is cracked and greasy, so unhygienic that it makes Blaine’s skin crawl. There is a loud snort, followed by a thump and then a string of muttered swearwords from the living room.

And yet, if Blaine imagines Kurt walking through the door right this minute, it makes the whole place seem beautiful.

“I’m sorry. I don’t agree,” Blaine says.

Louis shakes his head. “Don’t ruin yourself for a fantasy, Anderson.”

Kurt is not the way to ruin. Blaine has never been more certain about anything in his life. He stands up from the table and looks Louis in the eye.

“That producer. I want his card. Do you have it?”

*

That is how Blaine ends up loitering outside an office near St. Paul’s, drawing stares from people dressed to the corporate nines in their silk ties and LK Bennett heels. He shuffles his feet and tries to flatten his hair where the gel is wearing off behind his ears.

This part of London is not Blaine’s world. He feels nearly as out of place here as he did in Ohio.

Luckily, it isn’t long before the glass door swings open and a man Blaine recognises steps out. He has close-cropped hair that would be blonde if it were longer. His shoulders are wide, his waist is lean. A swimmer’s body. His name is Shane Parker-Williams. Before he can throw out his arm to hail a taxi, Blaine has stepped between him and the edge of the sidewalk.

“Hi,” Blaine says brightly, smiling his most charming smile and offering his hand to shake. “My name’s Blaine Anderson. You were supposed to watch my band perform last night.”

Shane doesn’t shake his hand. Blaine thinks he’s about to receive the standard blank dismissal practised by most Londoners when accosted by someone in the street. 

A flicker of recognition crosses Shane’s face.

“You’re the lead singer who didn’t show.” 

Blaine nods. “I know that you’re a busy man and that-”

Shane cuts him off, mid-appeal. “I remember you. We were introduced before.”

This takes Blaine by surprise. “Yes, sir. At a gig in Dalston. We met briefly, I think.”

“I liked your face. I remember that. Very commercial.” Shane studies Blaine with a critical eye, his gaze flicking up and down and back up again. “Very commercial indeed.”

“Oh,” Blaine says, bewildered, “Thanks.” 

This is not going the way he imagined. He had prepared to be down on his knees again, begging in the middle of the street. 

Shane lifts an arm to hail an approaching cab, still looking at Blaine like he's doing calculations in his head. 

“Where are you playing next?” he says, as the taxi is pulling up.

“Tomorrow,” Blaine replies, hurrying to get the car door for him. 

Shane gives Blaine an irritated look. “Where, I said.”

“The Safe House. Near Waterloo. We’re on at nine.”

“I’ll try to look in,” Shane says. “No promises.”

He slams the car door, reflecting Blaine’s own stunned reflection back at him.

*

They have played at The Safe House before. It is a cool place, dark and quirky, with mismatched tables and a whole wall of bottles behind the bar. The bartenders here toss glass into the air like it will never break. Blaine knows the bouncers and the technicians who help set up the equipment. It is enough to make things feel almost normal.

Karl fusses over his drums while Louis and Austin have a whispered argument about whether to make a last minute change to the order of the songs. Natty is convinced she has something in her eye and stands with her head tilted under one of the spotlights, so that Blaine can peer into it to check. There is nothing there, but Blaine keeps checking each time she asks. 

These are all manifestations of good-old fashioned nerves before a show.

When Shane Parker-Williams walks through the door those nerves get even worse. His presence sends the band into such a flurry of contained excitement, that Blaine forgets all about the other person he invited here tonight until he steps up to the microphone and spots Kurt in the audience. 

Kurt is alone, sitting quietly at the end of a table full of noisy people. He looks as composed as ever, with his pale skin and pale hands and beautifully cut clothes. Seeing him turns Blaine’s nerves into something kinder, excitement of a different sort. 

He catches Kurt’s eye as the intro to ‘End of Time’ is playing and then can’t look away for the rest of the song. He hasn’t done this before, sang point blank to one person. But it feels so natural to look and it’s not like Kurt is looking away either.

The crowd goes nuts for ‘End of Time’ and stays nuts as they move through two original songs, Natty’s flirty cover of Marina and The Diamonds’ ‘Primadonna’ and then another original. They close with a cover of ‘I’m Not Gonna Teach Your Boyfriend How To Dance’, which is a song Blaine still refuses to sing ironically, no matter what Austin says.

Afterwards, Blaine pushes his way to Kurt, who is as beaming and flushed as if he had been performing himself. 

“That was so great,” Kurt says, once Blaine reaches him. “You were incredible.”

“You liked it?”

“Are you kidding? I thought I was going to freak out like a teenage girl at a Bieber concert. I could have killed all these good people with the pitch I was reaching.”

Over by the bar, the rest of the band are gathered around Shane, who keeps glancing Blaine’s way and smiling. 

“An agent came,” Blaine tells Kurt. “It’s looking really good.”

"Oh, Blaine." Kurt hugs him hard, excited beacuse Blaine is excited. “He’s here now?”

Blaine nods. “I’d better go over there. I’m sorry I’m ditching you.”

Kurt waves this aside, pushes him in the direction of the bar. “No, no. Go,” he says. “We’ll speak after.”

Once Blaine is close enough, Shane puts an arm around him, like they are suddenly best buddies. His palm rests at the small of Blaine’s back.

“Well, guys,” Shane says, with a big white grin. “I say: let’s talk numbers.”

*

The numbers turn out to be pretty big. Louis has the business head, so they let him do most of the talking. Blaine just drinks his drink and tries not to fret about abandoning Kurt in a bar full of strangers.

They all drink a lot. At one point, Blaine finds himself alone in the booth with Natty and Shane. Then, Natty is gone too and Blaine is on his own. 

“It was really good of you to give us a second chance,” he tells Shane, trying to act professional instead of like some goofy college kid.

Shane is sitting pretty close to him, the corner of his shoulder brushing Blaine’s. He swallows the last of his drink.

“How about we take the conversation back to my place,” Shane says. “It’s better to conduct business in peace and quiet.”

“Okay. Let me tell the guys.”

Blaine wonders if he’ll be allowed to bring Kurt along. He looks around. Austin is standing at the bar. Kurt is sitting with Louis and Karl and a bunch of their cokehead friends, which is probably not the best place for him. Natty isn’t anywhere to be seen. Blaine starts to get up, but Shane stops him. 

“The others don’t have to come,” Shane says.

He puts his hand on Blaine’s thigh. Under the table. Way too high to be innocent. 

Their eyes meet. Blaine can’t move or react, not even when Shane’s fingers squeeze a little, like there is nothing at all creepy about the situation.

“Think about it,” Shane says. “I’m going for a smoke. I won’t be long.”

While Shane is outside, Blaine goes over to the bar and grabs Austin by the shoulder.

“That guy just asked me to go home with him,” Blaine says. “Alone.”

Austin turns and raises his eyebrows. He seems surprised, though not surprised enough.

“And you don’t want to?”

“Obviously I don’t. What’s wrong with you? Do you want me to?”

“Calm down.”

“Don’t tell me that. I’m not hysterical. I’m pissed off.”

Austin takes him by the elbow. An odd gesture. Patronising. Like a parent restraining a child. Blaine jerks his arm free.

“Of course I don’t want you to,” Austin says. “But it’s not a big deal. It’s, like, totally the done thing, Blaine. You don’t have to feel weird about it.”

Blaine stares at him in disbelief. “Are you kidding me right now?”

“We just really need this opportunity.” Austin accepts his drink from the barman and pulls bills out of his wallet. “You want another drink?”

“No. I want you to say out loud what you’re asking me to do,” Blaine says.

“I’m not asking you to do anything,” Austin says carefully. 

Suddenly it hits Blaine that he has no idea who this person is, or what goes on inside his head. 

Kurt is not the stranger. Austin is. 

For the first time, Blaine feels completely cold to him. Cold and hard and as though he could walk away from him right now and never miss him or feel bad or want to run back again.

That is exactly what Blaine does. 

He walks away.

*

The booth is already cramped. Blaine slides in next to Kurt, who scoots aside to give him room. Kurt has at least three glasses in front of him, though no traces of white powder yet, which is something.

“What are you drinking?” Blaine asks.

“Well, this is gin,” Kurt holds up one glass and then points to the other, which is orange and slightly frothy. “And that’s a porn star martini. I know it looks super camp, but it’s really good. Want to taste?” He pushes it towards Blaine. “It has passion fruit in there. Good, right?”

“I’m really glad to see you here,” Blaine tells him.

“That’s sweet,” Kurt says, with a smile. “I’m glad to see you too.” 

Across the room, Blaine sees Shane step back inside. He glances around and then heads over to Austin, who is still at the bar. 

Kurt is stirring his gin with a straw and looking at Blaine. “Are you okay?” he asks. “I don’t feel happy about this look on your face.” 

“It’s nothing,” Blaine lies. He doesn’t say it very convincingly and can see Kurt is about to call him on it, but they are interrupted by Louis’s friend Molly, who is sliding a square of foil in Blaine’s direction. 

“Anderson, are you going to join the cool kids?”

“Blaine doesn't do coke,” Louis says, loudly.

Blaine shakes his head. “It makes me feel weird.”

“You're so precious with yourself,” says Molly. 

Louis’s friends can be sort of hostile sometimes when you don’t join in. They can be difficult to refuse. Blaine hates it when they get that way. 

“I don’t enjoy it,” Blaine says.

“Baby Blaine,” Louis grins. “You'll never be a rock star.”

“How about you, Kurt?” Karl asks, “Is this your scene?”

Kurt moves the foil away from Blaine and himself, pushing it back towards Molly. “Not so much.”

“Too rough for you theatre types?” Louis asks.

“No. I just feel like having two nostrils gives my face a certain je ne sais quoi.” Kurt raises his glass. “I will have some more of this gin though, which is truly top notch.”

It is a much better answer than Blaine has ever managed himself. He laughs and then slides out of the booth. “Come on,” he says, holding his hand out for Kurt’s. “Let’s find where they keep the bottle.” 

*

They don’t head for the bar. Austin and Shane are there. Instead, Blaine pulls Kurt out through the back door. Kurt’s palm is damp, either with sweat or condensation from the glass of gin. His fingers grip Blaine’s tightly.

“What’s the matter?” he asks, once they are outside.

The ground is wet. It has clearly been raining. There is a security light above the door, which casts pretty shadows. Dull music is humming through the closed door. Other than that, they are all alone.

Blaine can’t help himself. He steps in close and kisses Kurt. Wide awake and not by accident. 

When they separate, he opens his eyes and says, “I’m definitely homeless now.”

Kurt squeezes Blaine’s hand more tightly. “No, you’re not,” he says.

*

There might have been some issues with Austin, but sex was never one of them. Blaine’s body always knows its way without him, no matter how muddled and intoxicated his brain has become over the course of a night. Going down on people is second nature.

Spread out on Kurt’s sheets, between Kurt’s legs, Blaine pushes a finger in alongside his tongue, adding stretch to the slickness of saliva. He can feel Kurt’s heartbeat racing, tight in the ring of muscle. 

Too tight. Too tense.

Blaine lifts his head, his tongue hot and tingling. He kisses Kurt’s hipbone to get his attention. Kurt is breathing quickly, his chest lifting and falling in flutters of motion. They stare at one another across the pale stretch of his body. Blaine can tell that there’s something not right here.

“Is this what you like?” he asks, rubbing his thumb up and down Kurt’s inner thigh.

“It’s fine,” Kurt says, swallowing on the words.

Blaine eases his finger out gently, not missing the hitch in Kurt’s breath. Then he crawls his way further up the bed, until he is braced on his arms, looking at Kurt properly.

“I don’t want to hear that it’s fine. I want to know if it’s what you like.”

Kurt swallows again. He gives a little shake of his head. “I don’t know what I like. I don’t like sex, remember?”

Kurt looks so apologetic that Blaine can hardly stand it. He ducks closer, kissing Kurt’s jaw, his cheek, the bridge of his nose, trying to radiate as much reassurance as he can. Sex doesn’t just happen the way it does in dreams. In reality, you need to work to make it good.

“We’ll get there,” Blaine says, between kisses. “I don’t want to do this unless you like it.”

He rolls them over, so that Kurt is on top and not boxed in beneath another body. It is a better position for someone skittish. Blaine is happy either way. He spreads his legs, urging Kurt forwards with his knees.

“I’ve never-” Kurt gasps as Blaine rolls his hips, pressing his ass against the hard length of Kurt’s cock. “I don’t know what I’m doing. This way.”

Blaine stretches up so that his can nip at Kurt’s bottom lip.

“That’s okay,” he says with a smile, “I’ll talk you through it.” 

Kurt catches him by the back of the neck and kisses him, his tongue far too filthy for someone who claims not to like sex. When they break apart, Blaine’s heart is racing, his whole chest warm from too little breath. Kurt’s thumb presses down against the corner of his mouth, pushing his bottom lip away from his teeth. Blaine curls his tongue around Kurt’s thumb and sucks it into his mouth, right up to the last knuckle, making it good and wet.

Kurt’s mouth drops open, watching him. They hold each other’s gaze, until Kurt lets out a moan and pulls his thumb away, ducking down so that they can kiss again.

“Am I going to have to do a lot more sucking?” Blaine asks, as Kurt’s kisses trail beneath his jaw, “Or do you have some lube around here?”

The only lube in Kurt’s drawer is strawberry flavoured, which makes Blaine laugh. 

“I got it free with condoms, okay?” Kurt says, licking a stray drop from the back of his hand. “I didn’t choose it.”

“That sounds like a lie.” Blaine grins, taking Kurt by the wrist and guiding his slick fingers down. 

He can taste the sweetness of strawberry on Kurt’s tongue as the first fingertip works its way inside of him. Blaine sighs into the kiss, breathing deep in a way that will ease out all the tension, let his body open up more easily and help him to draw Kurt’s finger in. 

“Are you okay?” Kurt asks.

It’s one finger. Blaine is fine. He blinks up at Kurt’s worried face, even though keeping his eyes open is already a pretty big effort.

“You know what it feels like,” Blaine says. “You’ve been on this end of things.”

“It feels like burn. I don’t want to hurt you,” Kurt says.

That’s not easy to hear.

“Jesus, Kurt,” Blaine says. “Who have you been sleeping with?”

“The wrong people, clearly.”

Muscles trembling, Blaine manages to haul himself up on his elbows, high enough to reach Kurt’s mouth with his own. 

“Don’t be so gentle,” he says. “I don’t need you to be. I don’t want you to be.” 

“Okay,” Kurt whispers, his lips moving against Blaine’s, before he starts to add another finger.

Two digits in, something is already changing. Kurt’s touch is becoming less hesitant. There are little flashes of creativity. Blaine is finding it harder to concentrate and keep talking. His eyelashes are fluttering. There is sweat on his brow and his cock is aching. 

“Now curl your middle finger, just the tip,” he instructs.

Kurt obeys, his fingertip grazing that spot which makes Blaine feel like he’s about to swallow his own tongue. 

“More,” Blaine gasps.

He feels the stretch of another finger, and then Kurt’s thumb is there too, pressing against his rim. That’s almost too much to handle, with the tip of the thumb barely pushing inside.

“Oh God, stop, stop,” Blaine gasps, catching Kurt by the shoulder, his fingertips digging in hard. He takes deep breaths and tries to think of all the least sexy things he knows.

Kurt is frozen, staring down at him, his eyes wide and so very blue.

“Was that bad?”

“No. It was too good.” Blaine lurches up to kiss Kurt on the mouth, wide open and messy, without a touch of finesse. It’s just teeth and saliva and tingling lips. 

“Fingers out. Slowly,” Blaine says. “I need your dick.”

Maybe it’s something physical, in the way that they fit together. Maybe his brain is being tricked by pheromones. Or perhaps it’s just the fact that this is Kurt Hummel, the boy from the underground. Whatever it is, Blaine feels ready to come on the spot as soon as Kurt starts to push inside. 

He pauses halfway, his body quivering between Blaine’s knees. 

“I’m fine. It’s fine. Keep going. Please keep going.” Blaine scrabbles at Kurt’s waist, trying to pull him in deeper.

Kurt sinks a little further, and then all the way. He pauses again once they are locked together, breathing hard against Blaine’s neck.

“Holy fuck,” he says, so quiet that Blaine can hardly hear it. His voice cracks on the word 'fuck'. This is a good thing. It means that Kurt is finally enjoying himself. But Blaine can’t lie still like this, not with someone hard and long and burning hot inside of him. He digs his fingernails into the cheeks of Kurt’s ass, thrusts his hips up to make the most of the angle.

“Move, baby,” Blaine whines, kissing every inch of skin that he can reach. “Move for me. Come on.”

For a moment, Kurt remains nothing but dead weight. Then he struggles upwards and slides his arms beneath Blaine’s back for leverage. In that position, close and tight and all folded up in one another, they find their rhythm, Kurt thrusting and Blaine stretching to meet him. 

Blaine is good at sex. He likes sex. He _gets_ sex. But this is on a different level.

As the more experienced of the two of them, Blaine should probably be able to last longer. Kurt is making these little noises with each thrust, whispering curses into Blaine’s mouth, gripping his shoulders so tight that it hurts in a good way, and Blaine just can’t hold on.

If he’s going down, he’s going to take Kurt with him.

With the last of his sanity, Blaine pulls Kurt into a sloppy kiss, one that ends with him tugging Kurt’s bottom lip between his teeth. 

“Do me like we’ve got an audience,” Blaine says. He squeezes his muscles deliberately, clenching deep inside.

“I’ll do you any way you want,” Kurt says. He manages to thrust once, twice more, before coming with a moan that gets swallowed up when he crushes his mouth against Blaine’s. 

That’s all it takes for Blaine to let go too. He comes hard and sticky between their bodies. 

They keep clinging to one another as they ride out the aftershocks, until the buzzing in Blaine’s ears has died down and Kurt is soft enough to slip out and collapse beside him.

Everything smells like jizz and strawberry lube. 

“That was awesome sex,” Blaine says, struggling with the covers until he can pull a blanket over the two of them. “You are, like, a really attentive student. Seriously. A plus.”

Kurt snuggles against him. “No, no. That was all down to the quality of your teaching. Bravo maestro. Bravo.”

“It was a total team effort.”

“Such a good team,” Kurt says. “Hey. If I get embarrassing once I come to my senses and happen to start sobbing out of sheer relief and joy at having fulfilling sex for the first time in my life, you’ll forgive me, right?”

“I won’t care,” Blaine mumbles, “I’ll be asleep.”

After a while, Kurt’s breathing evens out. Blaine is himself drifting right on the border between asleep and awake. He’s thinking back to his talk with Louis in the kitchen, how certain he had been, even then.

“Blaine,” Kurt says, his voice quiet in the dark, “I know this sounds crazy, but-”

“It’s okay,” Blaine says. “I want to say it too.”

Kurt lays his fingers against Blaine’s collarbone, his palm pressed right over Blaine’s heart. “I feel really sure of you. I’ve never felt sure like this before.”

It is the last thing Blaine hears before he falls asleep.

*

“I still don’t think that would land it on the curtains,” Kurt says, sceptically.

“It would depend on getting the angle right, but I think it could.”

Kurt considers this seriously for a moment, squinting out across the river. Then he shakes his head and turns back to Blaine.

“No. This is a disgusting conversation. I can’t believe we’re having it in public.” Kurt waves his hand, gesturing up and down the crowded Millennium Bridge. “There are children here, Blaine. I don’t think parents want their kids hearing about jizzed up curtains.”

It has been six weeks now since Blaine moved out of the house in Angel. His new housemates are people from college. Their place is in zone two, which it makes it cheap enough for him to afford his own room. 

He still sees Natty and Karl a lot. They meet up for drinks and to plan the new band the three of them are going to set up after Blaine graduates. 

Kurt’s flat is an easy bus ride away. They see each other nearly every day. On the days they are apart Blaine feels the absence like a culture shock, as though he has travelled too far and grown homesick.

From their spot on the bridge they can see half of London. The skyline rises up on either side of the Thames, illuminated in the dark. There is the pale dome of St. Paul’s, the glass of the financial district and the twinkling lights of South Bank. 

It is a beautiful city. 

Blaine makes himself stop laughing long enough to take Kurt’s face in his hands and kiss him on the lips.

“Do you mind kids seeing this?”

Kurt’s gaze darts around, at all the people passing them by. 

“No,” he says quietly, lowering his eyes, “This I hope they do see.”


End file.
